Mother charged in death of 5-year-old son who fell from 17th-floor apartment window

By Greg Dailey

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    KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KCTV) — A 27-year-old woman has been arrested and charged in connection with the death of her son two months ago.

Corrinne O’Connor was charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child and booked on a $100,000 bond into the Jackson County Detention Center.

On the morning of Nov. 27, someone passing by the Grand Boulevard Lofts apartments near 10th Street and Grand Avenue found Grayson O’Connor’s body on the ground and called police.

According to investigators, the 5-year-old boy fell from the 17th floor of an apartment. A probable cause document indicated Grayson died from “massive trauma to the head,” along with other severe injuries.

His death has been considered “suspicious,” according to information provided by investigators. When officers responded to the scene, they saw an apartment window from the top floor open, the only one on the entire floor.

The court document indicated Grayson had fallen and struck a covered walkway over the alleyway before falling to the ground.

“It should be noted that [Corrinne O’Connor] did not call emergency response for the incident and the body was discovered by a citizen walking out a basement door of the building,” the probable cause statement read.

The landlord of the Grand Boulevard Lofts apartments filed an eviction petition in court against Grayson’s mother earlier in January. The landlord claimed Grayson’s mother removed a safety device from an apartment window, according to court records. The petition said the landlord found out about the window stop being removed on the same day Grayson was found dead.

According to the probable cause document, Corrinne O’Connor’s apartment was covered in filth and trash. Investigators wrote that an open window of the living room had “a copious amount of chocolate on the sill and exterior ledge of the window. The chocolate on the interior window sill appeared to have been smeared as I observed what appeared to be child hand imprints in the chocolate. the chocolate on the exterior ledge of the window was dripping over the edge down to the ground seventeen stories below.”

A judge sealed all of the charges and documents related to the case on Dec. 14, 2023. That order was lifted on Jan. 26.

Corrinne O’Connor has been scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 5.

Endangering the welfare of a child, which leads to the child’s death, is a class A felony. In Missouri, a class A felony comes with a sentence that can range from 10 to 30 years, or life in prison.

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