Couple pleads guilty to charges in boy’s death after fall from KC area high-rise
An Independence couple, who faced charges after the man’s toddler fell from the eighth floor of a high-rise Independence apartment building in July 2024 and died, pleaded guilty Monday to reduced charges , receiving probation.
A criminal trial had been scheduled for September.
Moses Lee Bass, 30, and Destiny Lee Randle, 29, both received five years of probation for pleading guilty to second-degree endangering the welfare of a child on Monday, according to Jackson County court records.
The two were initially charged with first-degree child endangerment after the child, identified by family as Tidus L. Bass, fell to his death at Independence Towers on July 29, 2024.
A grand jury alleged the father and his girlfriend didn’t supervise their child while he was in a room that contained a window with a damaged screen that was able to be opened, resulting in the child’s death.
The 3-year-old boy was found lying on the grass outside the building at 728 N. Jennings Road, unconscious but breathing, where he was rushed to a hospital but later died.
Court documents show Bass and Randle knew the window was a safety hazard since June 2023, and that their children had been able to bypass the locks since December. Bass told police he would place a pole in the window’s track to keep it closed, but one of the children had learned how to remove it and unlock the window.
Randle told police she asked management to fix the broken window for months, according to charging documents.
Bass and Randle also sued the previous owners of Independence Towers, management company FTW Investments, alleging they were negligent in not providing windows with safety features they said could have prevented the boy’s death. The owners countersued before both cases were dropped.
The child’s death is an illustration of building problems that caused tenants of Independence Towers to unionize and launch a nearly eight-month rent strike which ended in June.
Tenants complained publicly for months about living among rats, mice, cockroaches and bed bugs. Residents didn’t have hot water for weeks at a time, according to previous reporting. There was no air conditioning in the summer, no heat in the winter, tenants said.
The rent strike ended after tenants came to an agreement with new building owners, Trigild Inc.
This story was originally published October 20, 2025 at 3:01 PM.
