According to the Lee's Summit Police Department, GiAnni L. Henderson, 30, has been charged with a child restraint violation, failure to provide proof of insurance, license plate violation, child endangerment, driving while intoxicated, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia after the Sunday evening incident.
Police say around 6 p.m. Sunday, emergency crews were called to a scene in the area of Hwy. 50 and Chipman Road.
An initial investigation revealed that the driver of the vehicle was traveling was on Chipman Road, preparing to turn onto the entrance ramp for WB Hwy. 50. As the driver was making the turn, a 1-year-old child in the back seat of the vehicle, fell out of the rear passenger door onto the roadway.
Police said the mother told them that an older child in the vehicle apparently unlatched the younger child's car seat. The younger child bounced out when the vehicle started moving.
Anna Pozos said she was in the car next to the turning vehicle and just happened to be glancing over when the turn lane light changed to green.
"(It was) starting its turn and (my reaction was), 'Oh my god, is that door open?' And I said, 'What just fell out? It hit the ground and it hit again and what was that?' And then, when I realized it was a baby, I started screaming, 'It's a baby. It's a baby,' and I jumped out and started running because the traffic light had turned green."
One woman jumped out of the car, and then the driver pulled over and she got out. Pozos said the driver identified herself as the mother. Pozos said she volunteered to hold the boy until the ambulance arrived and the mother went back to the car to wait with the other child.
She said that by that time, many people had also stopped to help.
Investigators were able to determine that the child was not properly restrained by Henderson while riding in the vehicle. That lack of proper restraint led to the child falling from the vehicle during the turn.
The 1-year-old child has been released from the hospital.
(ALSO)
She definitely tried to kill her children': Officials release new camera footage reveals how pregnant mom drove her three kids into the ocean as she appears in court to blame father
Ebony Wilkerson, 32, faces attempted murder and child abuse charges
Ebony Wilkerson, 32, charged with three counts of first-degree attempted murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse
Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson said she told her kids to close their eyes and go to sleep as she drove into the surf
Wilkerson's relatives were alarmed on Tuesday when she started talking 'about Jesus and how there were demons in her house'
Police pulled her over and did a welfare check but she told them
she was going to a domestic violence safe house because she feared her
husband
Rescuers pulled her three children- ages 3, 9, and 10- from the car
Wilkerson's husband, Lutful Ronjon, was charged with battery against his wife in 2005
Wilkerson was involved in 2007 car crash that left a woman dead
Video
captured by beach cameras has shown a South Carolina woman driving a
minivan carrying her three children into the ocean off Daytona Beach in
Florida.
Authorities in Volusia County said the video, which is of uneven
quality, shows the minivan, driven by 32-year-old Ebony Wilkerson,
traveling along the shoreline on Tuesday, March 4, before it eventually
veers into the water.
Wilkerson was arrested Friday on three counts of premeditated attempted first-degree murder and three counts of child abuse.
She
was taken into custody at Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona
Beach, where she had been taken for a mental health evaluation following
the incident.
'She definitely tried to kill her children,' Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson said in announcing the charges.
Police
say Wilkerson, who is pregnant, locked the doors of her 2012 Honda
Odyssey, put up the windows and told her three frightened children -
ages 3, 9 and 10 - to close their eyes and go to sleep as she drove into
the ocean.
According to authorities, the mother ignored the children's pleas
for help and insisted she was taking herself and her three children to
'a safer place'.
As water rushed into the minivan, Wilkerson left the vehicle with her children inside, a sheriff's office report said.
The children were rescued by beach officials and onlookers, and were not seriously injured.
Police
say Wilkerson, who is pregnant, locked the doors of her 2012 Honda
Odyssey, put up the windows and told her three frightened children -
ages 3, 9 and 10 - to close their eyes and go to sleep as she drove into
the ocean
Ebony Wilkerson appears before a Volusia
County Court charged with three counts of attempted murder after driving
her minivan into the ocean with her three children onboard
Ebony Wilkerson looks at her assistant public defender Nora Hall during her first appearance before a Volusia County Court Judge
They were placed in the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Hours before driving into the ocean, Wilkerson had talked about demons when she left her sister's house in Daytona Beach, a police report said.
Her worried sister called Daytona Beach police.
After the
call to dispatch, police officers stopped Wilkerson's black Honda
Odyssey and she reportedly expressed fear that her husband would be
coming to Florida to harm her and her children.
The children were sitting quietly in the car, smiling, and showed no signs of distress, the police report said.
'It
was clear during my conversation that Wilkerson was suffering from some
form of mental illness, but she was lucid and did not provide any signs
that she met Baker Act requirements,' the Daytona Beach police officer
said in the report.
The Florida Mental Health Act, commonly known as the Baker Act,
allows authorities to involuntarily take people into custody if they
seem to be a threat to themselves.
Family members told investigators that Wilkerson was in an abusive
relationship and that she had come to Florida to get away from her
husband, according to the sheriff's office report.
When questioned by police, Wilkerson
claimed that she had tried to drive out of the ocean, but eyewitnesses
insisted that she was going in the opposite direction and then tried to
hamper the rescue efforts, suggesting intent to kill them.
‘She tried to stop one of the beach rangers from getting into the window,’ Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson said.
The sheriff also revealed that Wilkerson's young son tried to fight his mother in a bid to gain control of the steering wheel.
‘She actually told them, "close their eyes and go to sleep, mama's
taking him to a better place,"' the law enforcement official told the
press.
Wilkerson, who is 27 and a half weeks pregnant with
her fourth child, was described by officials as calm, cooperative and
'very lucid.'
Wilkerson was stopped in her vehicle by police officers two
hours before she drove into the ocean. Her sister called police worried
since Wilkerson had been talking about demons.
The officers found her lucid and let her go, Police Chief Mike Chitwood said.
According to Wilkerson's sister, Jessica Harrell, the 32-year-old
woman was trying to escape from an abusive spouse when she drove from
her home in South Carolina to stay with her in Florida.
'Her
husband beat on her, so she came down to my house from South Carolina,'
said Jessica Harrell in a call to a 911 dispatcher just hours before
Wilkerson attempted to end her life by driving her minivan into the
surf.
Harrell, 28, asked the operator to send officers to perform a welfare check because her sibling appeared emotionally distraught.
'She's
talking about Jesus, that there are demons in my house, that I'm trying
to control her, but I'm trying to keep them safe,' Harrell said on the
call.
The woman revealed that she made an attempt to take Wilkerson to a hospital the day before, but the 32-year-old left.
When
officers caught up with Wilkerson and interviewed her, the woman
allegedly told them that she was heading to a shelter for abused women.
She also added that she was going to her ‘safe place.’
Wilkerson was let go because she did not meet the criteria to be
detained under the Florida Mental Health Act, which allows people to be
involuntarily committed if they appear to present a danger to
themselves.
In the 911 call, Jessica Harrell said that she had tried to take her sister to a shelter, but it had no vacancies.
Police
in Myrtle Beach said Wilkerson filed the domestic violence report March
1, accusing her husband of sexually assaulting her.
Court records uncovered by the Post and Courier indicate that
Wilkerson was married to Lutful Ronjon, 31, of Cross, who was arrested
in May 2005 on domestic battery charges.
The report stated
that Ronjon beat up his wife during an argument about receipts while the
couple were vacationing in Myrtle Beach.
The battery charge was later dismissed after Ronjon underwent a domestic violence pre-trial service program.
The Post and Courier in Charleston also found that Wilkerson was involved in a deadly crash in Delray in February 2007.
On the day of the accident, Wilkerson was going northbound on
Interstate 95 when she switched lanes and slammed into the rear of a
Nissan operated by Douglas Krane, of Fort Lauderdale.
Job 39:16
She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not her's: her labour is in vain without fear;
Lamentations 4:3
Even
the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young
ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in
the wilderness.
Isaiah 32:9
Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech.
Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come.
Isaiah 32:11
Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.
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