A 5-year-old girl playing with a skateboard in the courtyard outside her Minneapolis home was ultimately found safe after a woman released from prison a week earlier allegedly kidnapped her and dragged her to a light-rail station in Minneapolis.
Mckenzie Elizabeth Marie Wass, 26, of Minneapolis, was charged with felony kidnapping and false imprisonment Monday in Hennepin County District Court after police allege she abducted the girl from the Little Earth neighborhood in south Minneapolis.
Wass has a lengthy criminal history in Minnesota and most recently had been convicted of felony property theft in Hennepin County.
Wass was sentenced to 14 months in Shakopee prison and was let out on supervised release on Aug. 15, a week before the alleged kidnapping.
According to court documents:
Police were called on Aug. 22 to the 2400 block of Ogema Place after a woman reported to Little Earth security that her granddaughter was missing. The grandmother had been cooking dinner when she came outside and noticed the girl was missing and started frantically searching for her.
Little Earth security was able to show police a video of a woman approaching the girl about 6:30 p.m. before grabbing her and carrying her out of the courtyard. A photo of the woman who grabbed the girl was shown to the grandmother and the child’s parents, and they did not know her.
A little over two hours later, Metro Transit Police officers received reports of a woman who “looks strung out” dragging a child near 24th Street and Cedar Avenue, about four blocks from the Little Earth neighborhood. Police found Wass with a child near the light-rail station on Franklin Avenue.
