An 18-year-old Kahoka man is accused of intentionally driving his car into his girlfriend and a stroller carrying a child during an argument in an alley, leaving the child with undisclosed injuries and the woman limping away from the scene. Tayten Smith now sits in the Clark County Jail on a $100,000 cash-only bond after police tracked him down in a neighboring county following the alleged attack.
According to KHQA, witnesses told police that Smith and the woman started yelling at each other before he got in his car and drove fast down the alley where she and the child were standing. Smith then accelerated and hit both the woman and the stroller, according to the witness accounts cited in the report, with the impact tipping the stroller over. Smith reportedly stopped the car and got out afterward, but the woman was seen limping following the collision, and the child in the stroller suffered injuries that have not been disclosed.
The Kahoka Police Department investigated the alleged incident and ultimately arrested Smith in Scotland County, which borders Clark County to the west, per Data USA. Scotland County's seat of Memphis sits roughly 20 miles from Kahoka, meaning officers had to coordinate an arrest across county lines before extraditing Smith back to face charges in Clark County.
Charges Carry Up to Seven Years Each
Smith was charged with second-degree domestic assault and first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, both Class D felonies under Missouri law. Under Missouri Revised Statutes § 565.073, second-degree domestic assault applies when someone attempts to cause or knowingly causes physical injury, or creates a substantial risk of death or serious injury, to a domestic victim, according to the Missouri Revisor of Statutes. The child endangerment charge, filed under § 568.045, covers a first offense of creating a substantial risk to a child that doesn't involve sexual conduct.
The domestic assault statute applies here because Missouri Revised Statutes § 455.010 defines a domestic victim broadly to include anyone who is or has been in a continuing romantic or intimate relationship, regardless of whether the two ever lived together or married. Both charges Smith faces are Class D felonies, and under § 558.011, a conviction on either count carries a maximum penalty of up to seven years in the Missouri Department of Corrections, or up to a year in county jail.
Small-Town Setting, Statewide Pattern
Kahoka is a rural community of just 1,961 residents spread across 1.6 square miles, and it serves as the county seat and largest city in Clark County, a county of roughly 6,634 people across 505 square miles in the far northeastern corner of Missouri near the Iowa and Illinois borders. The alleged attack unfolded in an alley in the small town, the kind of setting where an incident like this reverberates quickly through a tight-knit population.
The case also lands amid broader scrutiny of domestic violence in Missouri, which ranks eighth highest among U.S. states for rates of domestic violence according to National Coalition Against Domestic Violence data cited by KBIA. State lawmakers introduced legislation this year aiming to create a statewide registry for domestic violence offenders, though that effort remains separate from the criminal case now moving through Clark County courts.
Smith remains held in the Clark County Jail as the case proceeds. It is not yet known what condition the woman and child are currently in, whether a protective order has been sought, or when Smith's preliminary hearing will be scheduled in Clark County Circuit Court.
