A woman who cried wolf for a second time in a year has been granted probation for making up a tall tale about her friend’s child being abducted.
The woman, Sharnika Lanay Mabry, 25, entered guilty pleas before Circuit Court Judge Bart Stanley to charges of child neglect and custodial interference. She was placed on probation for two years and was ordered into adult recovery court which is an 18-month rehabilitation program overseen by the local court system.
Her charges come after she flagged down police in the parking lot of Walmart and claimed a man had taken the 2-year-old she was babysitting.
“She (Mabry) came back to the mother’s home and told her the child was taken by force from her backseat and they fought over the child,” said McMinnville police investigator Todd Rowland, noting she gave the name of the man she said abducted the child.
However, when police went to the suspect’s home, he maintained he knew nothing about the crime. He allowed police to search and they found no sign of the child. Officers then received a call that the child had been found.
Her plea deal comes on the heels of custodial interference counts brought after she made off her with 2-year-old daughter just a week before. She has no visitation rights, but sped off from the father’s home with their daughter, sending police scrambling as she claimed she might take the child out of state. The child was found safe.
In yet another encounter with law enforcement, Mabry falsely claimed she was attacked by a gunman in a local motel parking lot last year. Police exposed her lie by speaking to witnesses and reviewing security video.