Deputies arrested a 23-year-old Texas woman in Lee County as a fugitive, saying she fled her home state after her mother found her children dead in a pool, cocaine in their systems.
Laura Nicholson was taken into custody by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office on Monday, May 11. She faces two charges in Texas for reckless injury to a child, a second-degree felony.
It was February 11 when the Harris County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call about two children who were found unresponsive in a swimming pool at the suspect’s home in Katy, TX.
The children, a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old, were found by their grandmother. It was unknown how long they had been in the pool, court documents state.
Nicholson told the arresting deputy that she had fell asleep in the couch when she heard her mother — the toddlers’ grandmother — screaming and retrieving the children from the pool.
Police reports state that autopsies showed cocaine in the children’s blood and that “any amount of cocaine in the body of a child this age can cause serious bodily injury and substantially increases the risk of death.”
The autopsy could not confirm that drowning was the cause of death, but it could have been a contributing factor.
Nicholson was charged with two counts of reckless injury to a child on May 8, less than a week before she was found in Lee County.
It is unknown when she fled or how long she has been in Southwest Florida. Federal law will require that Nicholson is extradited back to Texas.
She remained in custody at the Lee County Jail Tuesday morning.
Tayeba Hussein is a breaking news reporter for The News-Press & Naples Daily News. Reach her at thussein@usatodayco.com.
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This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Fugitive Texas mom arrested in Lee County after toddlers’ deaths
Reporting by Tayeba Hussein, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Fort Myers News-Press
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