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The random attempted abduction of a five-year-old girl outside her mother’s downtown apartment suite has landed a city woman a two-year prison term.
Kyla Patricia Wilcox, 34, pleaded guilty Friday to four charges, including the attempted abduction of a minor, in connection with an incident on May 12, 2023, inside an apartment complex in the city’s core.
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Reading from a statement of agreed facts, Crown prosecutor Karuna Ramakrishnan detailed the child’s traumatic experience when Wilcox, who didn’t live in the building, got off the elevator on the 14th floor where the girl and her mother lived.
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Ramakrishnan told Justice Glen Poelman the girl was playing with a seven-year-old friend when Wilcox approached them.
The girls were playing in the hallway outside the door to the victim’s mother’s unit.
“The building is a family-friendly building with many small children, and it is not unusual for them to play together in the hallways,” the prosecutor said.
“(The girl’s) mother … was in her nearby unit while the girls were playing.”
Wilcox got off the elevator and approached the children, asking where their parents were.
“(Her) friend was scared by the accused and ran into her apartment,” Ramakrishnan said.
“The accused asked (the victim) if her friend was her sister, and then asked (the child) to come with her into the elevator. (The child) was really scared, froze in place, and started to cry and scream.”
The girl couldn’t move away or enter her apartment because Wilcox was blocking her way, the prosecutor said.
“(The mother) heard the screaming and went out in the corridor to check on the kids. To her shock, she observed the accused standing in front of her apartment with (her daughter) pinned up against the wall in hysterics, screaming at the top of her lungs, crying uncontrollably and shaking.”
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The mother was able to grab her child and retreat into her apartment as an apparently intoxicated Wilcox screamed at her with random words and tried to force her way into the unit.
Once safely inside, she asked her daughter what happened but the child was initially so shaken up, she was unable to say what happened. She eventually did and police were called.
After menacing other residents, Wilcox followed some outside onto the street, where she was confronted by police.
Poelman accepted a joint submission from Ramakrishnan and defence lawyers Joshua l’Abbé and Yoav Niv for a two-year sentence followed by two years of probation.
L’Abbé told the Court of King’s Bench judge his client had a traumatic upbringing which included the death of her mother by suicide when Wilcox was just 14.
“That then led to a life that is punctuated by toxic relationships (and) substance abuse,” he said.
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