EVERETT — The 7-year-old boy was clutching a toy in one hand and a couple of dollars in the other when he told a Marysville Wal-Mart clerk he’d lost his grandma.
Store employees paged Kathryn Holland over the intercom for more than an hour. Tulalip Tribal police officers canvassed the parking lot but Holland, 54, was gone.
Police learned she’d left the boy, driven home to Anacortes and told her boyfriend, the boy’s grandfather, he needed to go get the child.
Holland was sentenced Tuesday to two months in jail. A jury in February found her guilty of third-degree abandonment of a child, a gross misdemeanor.
“It’s fortunate the outcome didn’t turn for the worse,” Everett District Court Judge Tam Bui said.
The boy, now 8, was not injured but he was traumatized by being left alone, his mother Karol Kiser said.
“He doesn’t like to go anywhere with anyone except me and his father,” Kiser told the judge. “He doesn’t trust anyone anymore.”
The boy was staying with his grandfather in May when Holland took him shopping. She bought groceries and left without the child. He wandered around the store for about a half-hour before he approached a clerk.
The family had just moved and he didn’t know his address or phone number. He knew where his mom worked, though. Police called Kiser there. She and the boy’s father headed for the store. They also called the boy’s grandfather.
About 15 minutes later, Holland came home. Her boyfriend confronted her about his grandson’s whereabouts.
She went to take a bath, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Jeremy Bartels said.
Bartels planned to recommend a 45-day sentence. On Tuesday he asked Bui to sentence Holland to three months behind bars.
“She’s maintained an attitude that it’s no big deal,” Bartels said. “She abandoned him. To this she has shown no remorse for what she’s done.”
Attorney Whitney Rivera asked Bui to suspend any jail sentence for Holland, who doesn’t have any prior criminal convictions.
Holland addressed Kiser and other members of the boy’s family. She told them she loves the boy as her own.
“I want you to know I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” she said.
Kiser said she is thankful the Wal-Mart employees and police were kind to her son. They bought him lunch and cared for him.
“They didn’t leave him to the system,” she said.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.
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