Police: Woman left kids to fend for themselves for 2 months

ROMAN FOREST, Texas (KTRK) - A Texas woman is wanted by police for allegedly abandoning her two young children and leaving them alone for nearly two months.

Police said the children, who are 12 and 3 years old, were found in deplorable conditions with very little food.

“There was no food in the house. Everything was empty. There was some dry beans and some spices. That about it,” Roman Forest Police Chief Stephen Carlisle said.

Their mother, identified by police as Raven Yates, is accused of leaving them in late September.

There has been a warrant out for her arrest since December.

Investigators say the 12-year-old never told anyone because she was threatened with what might happen to her little brother.

Both children have different fathers.

“She was afraid her father was going to take her and leave the 3-year-old by himself,” Carlisle said.

Out of fear, the girl obeyed. She would call her father, saying her mother was working and he would send food, officials said.

According to police, the father is a music producer in California. He called police once family members spotted Yates in Mobile, Alabama, where she’s from, without her kids.

“When he got a call from his ex-mother-in-law, he put two-and-two together and caught the first plane over here,” Carlisle said.

Investigators said they were shocked to see how the children were living.

“The officers checked the bedrooms and discovered heavy urine odor coming from the 3-year-old’s bed,” the police chief said.

Yates continues to be active on social media, posting to her thousands of followers as investigators work with Mobile police to arrest the 31-year-old woman.

She’s wanted on two counts of abandoning or endangering a child without intent to return.

“A 12-year-old cannot take care of a 3-year-old for a long period of time. It’s dangerous, especially over a month and a half. It’s dangerous and irresponsible of a parent,” Carlisle said.

Yates also reportedly has a 14-year-old daughter who was reported as a runaway the same month investigators say she left her two younger children.

All three children are now safe and living with another family member.

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