ARCHER COUNTY (KFDX/KJTL) — A Wichita Falls woman has been released on a $100,000 bond after Archer County authorities said she tied her child to a seat belt and dragged him down Highway 79 for punishment.
Marion Stade, 61, is charged with child endangerment. She was arrested by Wichita County deputies on a warrant from Archer County after the Tuesday, May 2, incident.
The Archer County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a witness that morning that a woman was dragging a child out of the back seat of a vehicle on the side of Highway 79 south of FM 1954.
The witness said the boy was tied to the seat belt.
A deputy was sent to check on the report and located Stade’s vehicle. He said he questioned her, and she told him the child had called her a name while she was driving and she had stopped and waited for him to apologize and nothing else had happened.
The deputy suggested to the boy he should apologize and cleared the call with dispatch.
Sheriff Jack Curd then contacted the deputy and said he had received a text from a passerby with a video of the incident and told the deputy to stop her again and ask if she had tied the child to the vehicle with the seatbelt and drove with the child running outside the car.
The deputy caught up to her again and made another stop and said Stade told him the boy would not get out of the road, and she had to do something to control him.
The deputy took down the information and again cleared the call.
When the videos were reviewed, officials said one showed the child outside the car with a seat belt wrapped around his body. Another video taken from behind the car showed the boy running alongside the car as it was moving with a seat belt tied to him.
The driver then slams on the brakes and stops, then goes forward again, causing the boy to continue running.
Sheriff’s officials said it shows the boy trying to hang on to the car and trying to pick his feet up so he won’t fall and be dragged.
