KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A 35-year-old woman is charged in the death of her 6-year-old son.
Prosecutors charged Tasha Haefs with first-degree murder and armed criminal action less than a day after she was arrested at a home in the 7300 block of Indiana Avenue.
Kansas City police were dispatched to Haefs home shortly before midnight Tuesday night.
In the application police submitted to get a search warrant, officers said a woman in the home called for help, said someone was trying to harm her, and “the devil was trying to attack her.”
Court documents show officers noticed what appeared to be blood leading to the front door of the house. Documents also showed officers heard a woman singing loudly who refused to answer the door. The louder they knocked, the louder she sang.
Court paperwork shows that an officer looked inside a window home and saw what he thought was part of a child’s deceased body. They also learned there were three children known to live in the house.
Officers forced their way inside when the woman refused to answer the door and found Haefs in the kitchen. Documents show she had what appeared to be blood on her legs and feet. Officers determined Haefs had several cuts and scratches on both of her hands. She also had a cut and a puncture wound to her right thigh.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker released a statement after filing charges in the case.
“The community now knows some of the terrible details of the death of this 6-year-old child. It takes our breath away,” Peters Baker said.
She said her office plans to review systems available to make sure they didn’t miss any opportunities to intervene in the case, but she stressed that she doesn’t know of any failed processes.
A child advocate compared the case to that of “Precious Doe,” the little girl whose badly mutilated body was discovered more than 20 years ago in Kansas City.
“It’s from 20 some years ago, from the Precious Doe case,” said Teresa Perry, a child advocate who worked to help identify 3-year-old Erica Green. “Now, I’m hearing that instead of the baby being 10, the baby might be 5. So it’s the same. Almost the same.”
“That’s just horrific,” Mark Forrest, who lives nearby, said. “I feel sorry for the family, and all my prayers go out to family members. It’s just a terrible time with COVID just being lifted and we don’t need this right now in our neighborhood.”
Anyone who may have more information on the incident is urged to call the Homicide Unit at 816-234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS.
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