Kansas City woman allegedly tried to kidnap 5-year-old off the street on Tuesday
A Kansas City woman was facing two felony charges Wednesday after she allegedly tried to kidnap a 5-year-old boy she did not know as the child was walking with his father in the Sterling Gardens neighborhood on the city’s East Side.
Marcy L. Vansandt, 51, was arrested outside of her home Tuesday after witnesses reported the event, leading police to engage in a high speed chase through Kansas City and Independence. She was charged Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court with attempted kidnapping and fleeing police.
According to court records, Kansas City police were called late Tuesday morning to the intersection of 49th Street and Blue Ridge Boulevard on a report of an attempted kidnapping. At the scene, they spoke with a 51-year-old man who said that a stranger, later identified by authorities as Vansandt, had tried to pull his son into her car as they were walking along the road.
The father told police she had approached them from her silver Kia, opened the rear passenger door, walked up to them and grabbed his son by the arm. She said something along the lines of “she has seen this too many times” and that the child was “not supposed to be with him,” the man recalled to officers.
The father said he pushed Vansandt away and told her not to touch his son. She allegedly argued with him before getting back into her vehicle and then following them down the road slowly.
Two bystanders told police that they were driving past when they saw Vansandt in the road attempting to flag down cars. They said she accused the father of trying to take the boy, and then waited on scene as the father called police.
As everyone was waiting for the police, Vansandt allegedly emerged from her vehicle again — this time holding a blunt instrument. She was told by bystanders to get back into the vehicle, which she did.
When officers got there, they approached Vansandt’s vehicle in an attempt to contact her, charging papers say. That’s when she “shook her head at the officers and fled the scene,” a detective wrote in charging documents.
Vansandt allegedly refused to stop as police vehicles followed her with lights and sirens, driving at high speeds through Kansas City and Independence. During the chase, she allegedly drove into oncoming traffic and blew several signal lights and signs.
Police lost track of the vehicle after about 15 minutes near the area of 75th and Woodson Road. Officers then went to the address listed on her Missouri driver’s license and saw her pulling up to the residence.
As she was being arrested, Vansandt “spontaneously stated to officers that she was trying to save a child,” court papers say. During a police interview, she allegedly told detectives she thought the father “looked evil” and believed he was going to “put (the child) in an illegal sex trade.”
An attorney for Vansandt was not listed in court records.
