Lee’s Summit woman accused of KC school threats, mental health evaluation ordered
Police arrested a Lee’s Summit woman Tuesday after she allegedly sent a series of bizarre and threatening emails to a police employee that included threats to shoot up schools and kill people in the Kansas City area.
Police said they found the woman, Kathryn Welty, in an abandoned building Tuesday night and took her into custody.
Prosecutors charged Welty with one count of first-degree terrorist threat, a felony, and one count of second-degree harassment, a misdemeanor, in Jackson County Circuit Court on Wednesday.
A judge set Welty’s bond at $1,000 and ordered her to receive a mental health evaluation.
Court records do not yet list an attorney for Welty.
Police said they were familiar with Welty after investigating a case for her several years ago, and since then, they said, she had sent an employee “hundreds” of messages. Welty would make new email accounts to contact the employee, as the department would block multiple addresses, a police detective wrote in court documents.
Included in the emails Welty allegedly sent on Tuesday were messages with subject lines that referenced sexually assaulting children, as well as a list of four schools she said “that can get shot” and the phrase, “I’m not afraid to shoot up a school (school emoji) for safety.” She also allegedly sent the results of a search query about guns that were “notorious” for “blowing the limbs off” humans in war.
“I will have to enter a elementary school with a gun for this to get better,” she allegedly wrote in the subject line of one message.
