Woman charged in Grandview child abduction has done it before

A Grandview woman who tried to snatch a 5-year-old boy seven years ago is now charged with trying to take a 4-year-old boy.

Police credited two men with rescuing the boy during a tense encounter Monday evening at a Grandview apartment complex.

Edwina C. Bates, 44, was charged Tuesday with endangering the welfare of a child. Prosecutors requested bond at $100,000.

Bates pleaded guilty to endangerment after trying to snatch a 5-year-old child in south Kansas City in 2007.

Police were called to the 11900 block of Newton Avenue just after 6:30 p.m. Monday on a report that a boy had been abducted.

According to court documents, the boy was playing in the grass with another child in front of the apartment building while his mother, who uses a wheelchair, watched from above. Bates allegedly picked up the child and carried him upstairs while the mother yelled at her to leave the boy alone. By this point the child was screaming for his mother.

Two men saw what was happening and followed the woman to the upper floor of the apartment building. More than once she allegedly dangled the boy over the balcony, about 17 feet above the ground, before one of the men grabbed him away from her.

“I think they saved the kid,” Sgt. Dean Van Winkle said of the two men.

According to court documents, Bates told police she had smoked marijuana, had five alcoholic drinks and was on medication.

In the 2007 case, witnesses saw Bates grabbed a boy off his tricycle at an apartment complex in the 8200 block of Troost Avenue and alerted his parents. Bates punched the child’s father in the face and said, “He’s mine. I’m taking him.” The father called police, but Bates was gone before they arrived.

She later returned and apologized. The father again called police and Bates was arrested.

She was placed on probation in that case, but it was revoked in 2011. She was released from prison in 2012.

This story was originally published August 12, 2014 at 4:16 PM.