Ex-UIW student-athlete’s criminal case going to trial

By David Peters LOGOS STAFF WRITER

A former University of the Incarnate Word student-athlete will be tried on aggravated assault and kidnapping charges involving a 3-year-old boy and his mother, according to Bexar County court records.

Myrajah Deshjonae Rankin, 19, of Round Rock, Texas, appeared April 25 before the county’s 186th District Court on its pre-trial docket, according to Bexar County Criminal Justice Information Systems.

Rankin, formerly a freshman sprinter on UIW’s women’s track-and-field team, was charged Feb. 16 with trying to kidnap the boy and stabbing his 28-year-old mother with a screwdriver outside the Villa Rodriguez apartment complex, 3251 Nacogdoches Road.

The San Antonio Police Department said the mother noticed a woman she didn’t know approaching her son around 2 that afternoon. When the mother told the woman – later identified as Rankin -- to get away from her son, Rankin allegedly began shouting, stabbed the mother twice in the forearm with the screwdriver, ripped the boy from his mother, and ran off with him.

Slowed by a metal fence, Rankin reportedly tried to squeeze the boy through a gap in the fence when witnesses caught up to her. A worker wrestled the child away from Rankin, who then entered an apartment at the complex through a sliding door and hid in a closet. Three females in the apartment – a mother, daughter, and mother-in-law -- began screaming for Rankin to leave and called 911. San Antonio police arrived and arrested Rankin without incident.

Rankin was released Feb. 24 after posting $150,000 bond Feb. 23. A judge included special conditions Feb. 17 for her eventual release: she was to have no contact with the victims, be on full GPS and possess no firearms. She was appointed an attorney on Feb. 18, but since being released she has hired a private attorney, Ronald Perry Guyer.

She is no longer a UIW student. The university confirmed Rankin was a student from Aug. 22, 2022, through March 22, 2023. While she was in jail, court records identified her as an inmate bearing SID #0277776. Court records also show she was granted the chance to attend work and return home as of April 6.

The Logos is still waiting for a response from the SAPD open records unit regarding the police report on Rankin. The newspaper also has requested an interview with her attorney.

Cadence Mejia/LOGOS STAFF

Party time

Thousands enjoy ‘Alamo Heights Night,’ an official Fiesta event Friday, April 21, at the University of the Incarnate