Mom pleads guilty in death of 5-year-old son who fell from KC high-rise in 2023
Over two years after her 5-year-old son fell to his death from the 17th floor of a Kansas City apartment building, a mother has pleaded guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in connection with his death.
Corrinne O’Connor, 29, pleaded guilty to first-degree involuntary manslaughter, a class C felony, in Jackson County court Monday in connection with the 2023 death of her son, 5-year-old Grayson O’Connor.
A sentencing document filed in Jackson County court said O’Connor will serve 10 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections with no probation. She will receive credit for time already served.
Safety devices removed from window, apartment deemed ‘uninhabitable’
Shortly before noon on Nov. 27, 2023, a passerby found Grayson dead in an alley near the Grand Boulevard Lofts, near East 10th Street and Grand Boulevard.
According to a probable cause statement in support of O’Connor’s arrest, responding officers noticed an open window on the apartment’s 17th floor.
Investigators and a property manager for the building knocked on the apartment door, where they found O’Connor lying in front of the open window, the statement said. When asked where her son was, O’Connor uttered: “Out the window.”
O’Connor did not call 911 after Grayson fell from the window, according to the court document.
The property manager told detectives that the apartment’s window should not be able to fully open, as every window was supposed to have two “stops” preventing it from opening past a “few inches,” the statement said.
According to the probable cause statement, the window being “fully open” indicated the stops had been “purposefully removed.” Investigators found that every window in the residence had safety stops, except for the living room window.
Detectives noted poor conditions during a search of the residence, finding feces and piles of food and trash scattered throughout the apartment, and dried liquid on the walls, the statement said.
Investigators found “a copious amount of chocolate” smeared across the inside and outside ledges of the window, still dripping to the street below, the statement said.
The Grand Boulevard Lofts filed a civil lawsuit against O’Connor, and the woman was evicted from the apartment in Feb. 2024.
The suit claimed O’Connor “carelessly” removed the window stops in the apartment’s living room, and that the residence had been deemed “uninhabitable by the State due to very poor sanitary conditions.”
Neighbors reported abuse to police, social services before fatal fall
In April 2024, The Star obtained records from the Missouri Department of Social Services that revealed police had been called to O’Connor’s apartment at least eight times since 2018, and that Grayson had temporarily been removed from his mother’s custody at least once before his death.
Callers contacted the Missouri child welfare agency seven times prior to Grayson’s fall in an attempt to protect him.
Some calls reported that O’Connor had unstable housing or had previously used drugs. Others claimed the callers had seen the woman berate and scream at her son, or that she appeared overwhelmed and was unable to care for him.
Three hotline calls were made in 2023, the year Grayson died, including a report that she had screamed at him and left him at an intersection.
Missouri’s Children’s Division opened cases for “family-centered services” and “intensive in-home services,” both of which were closed less than three weeks before Grayson died.
Neighbors previously told The Star they had cared for the 5-year-old after his mother left him at a bus stop, recalling bruises on the boy’s face and obvious signs of neglect and abuse within the pair’s family dynamic. Others detailed frequent yelling coming from the pair’s apartment.
Grayson was described as a friendly boy who was always eager to speak with the building’s residents, according to neighbors.
O’Connor is being held in the Jackson County Detention Center, according to the jail’s inmate listing.
The Star’s Laura Bauer and Bill Lukitsch contributed reporting.
This story was originally published March 16, 2026 at 4:54 PM.
