MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A man accused of trying to kidnap a child from school twice has been indicted on a new kidnapping charge.
“I’m just tired and ready for it to be over with,” said a mother who asked we keep her identity hidden for her children’s safety.
She said it’s been a grueling decade in and out of police stations dealing with the same man: Tavius Woods.
Woods was indicted again Tuesday for especially aggravated kidnapping.
The court clerk said the paperwork isn’t available yet, but the mother we talked to told us it involved her daughter — the same daughter Woods allegedly tried to kidnap two times from Germanshire Elementary last April.
We followed his case in court, which abruptly ended with a judge ruling Woods incompetent to stand trial.
“It’s crazy they keep letting him go,” she said.
Crazy, she said, because Woods was also arrested for sexually assaulting her other daughter in 2013 at a daycare.
Woods was charged with that crime, but again, a judge said he was incompetent.
The charges were later dismissed and then expunged.
Woods landed a job working in the cafeteria at a Shelby County school around that same time.
“He’s able to do all this stuff and terrorize us and harass us, but you won’t stop it,” she said. “If he knows he’s going to get off, of course he’s going to continue to do it.”
This mother said Woods continued to contact her family, including at work and through fake accounts on Facebook.
She said he even sent a disturbing old photo of her daughter. She has no idea how he got it.
“It looks like she don’t have a shirt on. This is my oldest daughter,” she explained. “He said he loved her. He said this is my girlfriend. She had a towel wrapped around her, and she’s naked.”
WREG tried asking Woods about it when we stopped by the address listed on court documents. No one came to the door.
Meanwhile, the mother said she keeps reporting everything to authorities.
“I feel a lot better it’s going to Criminal Court,” she said.
Woods is set to be in court March 28.
He was released on his own recognizance hours after he was indicted.
