Inset: Kayla M. Christensen (Newton County Jail). Background: The Missouri truck stop where Christensen allegedly left her 4-year-old daughter (Google Maps).
A Missouri woman allegedly abandoned her 4-year-old daughter at a truck stop overnight before telling police that she did not have a daughter, authorities said.
Kayla Marie Christensen was arrested last week and charged with one count of first-degree child abandonment and two counts of first-degree child endangerment, according to court records.
In a criminal complaint filed in Newton County, Missouri, prosecutors allege that Christensen left the girl at a Love’s Travel Stop before dawn on Oct. 23.
The investigation began shortly before 3 a.m. Friday, when Neosho Police Department officers responded to a report of a young child alone in the travel stop’s parking lot.
According to police, Christensen deliberately left the 4-year-old at the truck stop and had no intention of returning for her.
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Police said Christensen drove away with her two other young children, both boys, in the vehicle. Neither boy was properly secured in a car seat, authorities alleged, and both were near “suspected drug paraphernalia,” resulting in the child-endangerment charges.
The alleged paraphernalia included syringes. The affidavit states that driving under those conditions “created a substantial risk of injury not only to the children but also to other motorists and members of the public.”
After officers located Christensen and asked about the 4-year-old, she allegedly said that her only children were the two boys. The affidavit identifies the girl as “JV1.”
“As [the victim’s] mother and person legally responsible for her care, [Christensen] left four-year-old JV1 with the purpose of wholly abandoning her under circumstances likely to result in serious physical injury or death, as evidenced by knowingly driving away, failing to return, and later denying that she had a daughter,” the affidavit states.
Following the alleged abandonment, Christensen reportedly left her two sons inside the vehicle while she entered a casino in Wyandotte, Kansas, according to a report by Joplin, Missouri, news radio station KZRG. As of Oct. 26, there did not appear to be any record that Christensen had been arrested in Wyandotte County.
Records indicate that Christensen was arrested on the night of Oct. 23, but she did not appear to be in custody as of Oct. 27. It was not immediately known when she was scheduled to appear in court.
