KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A judge has sentenced a 29-year-old mother to prison after she pleaded no contest to charges stemming from a pursuit in northeast Kansas that ended in a crash, killing her 1-year-old.
Maria C. Papalas was ordered to serve more than 25 years in the Kansas Department of Corrections during a sentencing hearing that was held Tuesday morning in Atchison County District Court.
The sentencing comes after Papalas was convicted on a second-degree murder charge as well as two counts of aggravated child endangerment for a pursuit that ended in a deadly crash.
The events leading to the deadly crash happened around 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 25, 2024. According to a statement from the Atchison County Sheriff’s Office at the time, a deputy was trying to stop a car that reportedly matched the description of a vehicle that left the scene of a crash in the city of Atchison.
The deputy spotted the car near Sherman Road and 244th Road, pulled the car over and tried to talk to the driver, later identified as Papalas, but the sheriff’s office said she sped away.
The sheriff’s office said at the time that the deputy did not notice any other passengers in the vehicle.
The deputy followed the car south on Sherman Road but soon found that it drove off the road and rolled multiple times.
According to the sheriff’s office, Papalas removed her injured 1-year-old child from the back seat of the car. The child, Mixalis Papalas-Schultz, was taken to a hospital, where he died two days later.
Papalas was arrested after the crash and charged. Online court records showed that she pleaded no contest to amended charges in May.
