A Texas woman went on a cruise and left her children--an eight-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl--home alone in the family’s $3600-a-month apartment in Houston, police charge.

According to a criminal complaint, neighbors of Lakesha Woods Williams, 29, spotted her departing the luxury McKinley Apartments on April 4 with “luggage and bags” and “never saw her return to the location.”

Aware that children may have been left in the 21st floor apartment (which has a small balcony), a witness called police. Cops who visited the complex on April 9 discovered the two children in the apartment, which was “in complete disarray and had trash and left-over food all over the unit” and reeked of urine.

The children told police that their mother “had left them since April 4, 2024, to go on vacation on a cruise and they did not know when she would return.” The boy used a phone to text his mother while she was vacationing, and cops found a webcam that Williams allegedly “was using to watch and talk to the children while she was away.”

The children were examined by emergency service personnel and subsequently released to the custody of their aunt. When contacted by police, Williams (seen above) was uncooperative, refused to return to the residence, and “was switching up her story on her whereabouts,” according to the complaint and other court records.

After an April 12 court hearing, a judge ordered Williams--who was busted on a felony child abandonment count--locked up in lieu of $25,000 bail, citing the “egregious nature of this offense” and witness accounts that “this is not the first time something like this has occurred.”

Williams is scheduled for arraignment on June 11.

According to a financial affidavit, Williams earns $6000 monthly working full-time for a nursing service. She has lived for the last year in a 1300-square-foot apartment with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The McKinley complex features an outdoor pool, clubroom, library, fitness club, sports lounge, and private wine storage.