Officials: Mom went on a cruise and left her six- and eight-year-old children home alone

A mother from Texas is charged with abandoning her young children at home by themselves for over a week while she was on a vacation.

According to court records from Harris County, deputies were dispatched to a posh high-rise apartment complex in Houston on April 9 following reports from nearby residents that two children, ages six and eight, had been left alone in one of the apartments.

Around midday on April 4, neighbors reported to authorities that they saw Lakesha Woods Williams, the mother of the children, leave the apartment complex with baggage and never saw her return.

According to court documents, when deputies entered the flat, they discovered the two children alone. According to them, there was “complete disarray and trash and leftover food all over” the flat. The flat had a “very potent smell of urine,” according to deputies as well.

The kids informed deputies that they had no idea when their mother would return after she departed on a cruise vacation on April 4.

According to investigators, Woods Williams used a camera to monitor and communicate with her children while she was away. To text her, one of the kids had a phone.

The kids were taken out of the house and given to a family member.

Constable Ted Heap said in a Facebook statement, “We are still piecing together the facts and circumstances of how these children were left alone for several days, but the important thing is they are safe now and those responsible should be held accountable for leaving these kids in an unsafe situation.”

Woods Williams “was not cooperating and was switching up her story on her whereabouts,” according to court records, despite the sheriff’s office’s best efforts to reach her.

Woods Williams was arrested the following day, deputies say, after he returned to the apartment on April 10. She was accused of putting children at danger.