Charge: Girl, 5, safe after woman just released from prison kidnaps her in Minneapolis

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.

Wass originally told officers the girl was her child, and they were on their way home. She said the child was being sexually abused and trafficked. Wass said, “I just got her back.”

The child was crying hysterically and said she did not know the woman and had been taken from her grandma’s house while she was outside playing with her skateboard. The child also said that Wass had taken her pants and underwear off and threw them off a bridge, and officers saw that the child’s pants were inside out.

Wass gave a statement to officers that was filled with profanity alleging that whether or not the child was hers, she believed the child was being sexually molested and left outside to fend for herself.

She is in custody and due in court Monday. Wass has been convicted of several felonies in Minnesota, including for drug possession, assault, auto theft and firearm possession.