A woman was arrested in Alabama on Wednesday for allegedly abandoning her two children in Houston for nearly seven weeks.
According to the Roman Forest Police Department, per Fox News, Raven Yates was discovered at an apartment complex in Mobile at around 4:30 p.m. after a tip-off to the U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Violent Offender Fugitive Task Force.
Yates was supposedly staying with a man at the apartment complex.
Police said the man in question, whose name was not released, cooperated with their entering his apartment and carrying out the arrest.
A local Fox affiliate reported that Yates had made multiple posts on social media which helped lead to authorities finding her location.
She is accused of leaving her 12-year-old daughter and three-year-old son home alone for weeks with little access to consistent sources of food.
She is charged with two counts of abandonment/endangerment of a child without intent to return. She is currently in custody and awaits extradition back to Montgomery County.
The two children are now staying with a relative in Alabama, according to Fox 26 Houston.
The children had apparently been alone between September 28 and November 14 and had not been registered at any school, per Fox 26.
It was the children’s father, whose name has not been released, who reportedly discovered on November 14 that the children had allegedly been abandoned. He flew home to Texas from California, where he had been working, and reported the situation to the police.
A warrant for Yates’ arrest was issued on December 8.
A reporter from Fox was able to contact Yates, who apparently alleged that her husband was attempting to kill her.
She claimed that she “hired a nanny for the children while she was away, and she had to take care of her father who was on life support” and also that her 12-year-old child had “thousands of dollars to do and buy whatever,” reported Fox News.