GRANDVIEW, Mo. – A Grandview, Mo., woman has been charged with endangering a four-year-old boy after witnesses told police the woman took the child to a third floor apartment and hung him over a railing. The woman has been identified as Edwina Bates, 44.
Witnesses said the boy was taken from right in front of his wheelchair-bound mother on Monday shortly before 6:30 p.m. Officer responded to the area of 11921 Newton, where the boy was reportedly abducted.
Two people saw the woman take the boy and followed her up the stairs to an adjacent part of the apartment building where they confronted her. One man said when they approached the woman she refused to turn the boy over to them and held the boy over the railing. The man was able to grab the boy and pull him to safety.
“She was just real — just bouncing everywhere,” said Lorin Carr, neighbor. “She was all over the place, rambling, a bunch of rambling. She was saying so much stuff, I don’t know what she was saying.”
The boy’s mother, Nicole Novotny, said she was terrified.
“Very terrifying,” she said. “There’s no words to even explain it. I was terrified. My heart was pounding and I about had a panic attack.”
The ordeal has brought her and her hero neighbor even closer.
“Peace of mind. And knowing that they’re there for me,” she said.
Police said Bates told officers she just wanted to play with the boy. Bates remains in police custody. Prosecutors have asked for a bond of $100,000.
