Felony Plea For Texas "Home Alone" Mother

NOVEMBER 7--A Texas woman who left her two young children--ages eight and six--home alone while she went on a four-day cruise pleaded guilty today to a felony abandonment count, according to court records.

Lakesha Woods Williams, 29, copped to a charge carrying a prison term of between six months and two years and a maximum $10,000 fine. As part of Williams’s “open” plea, she has not reached an agreement with prosecutors as to her possible punishment.

Seen above, Williams will be sentenced early next year by a Houston judge following the preparation of a Presentence Investigation Report (for which Williams has declined to participate).

According to investigators, Williams and her children resided in a $3600-a-month apartment on the 21st floor of the luxury McKinley Apartments in Houston. In a court financial affidavit, Williams reported earning $6000 monthly as a full-time nursing service employee.

In April, neighbors spotted Williams leaving the complex with “luggage and bags,” but not her offspring. A witness who “never saw [Williams] return to the location,” called 911, fearing that the children--a boy and his younger sister--were alone.

A subsequent police welfare check found the children by themselves in a home that smelled of urine and was “in complete disarray and had trash and left-over food all over the unit.” The juveniles told cops that their mother went “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 used to “watch and talk to the children while she was away.” The minors were subsequently released to the custody of their aunt.

When contacted by phone, Williams was uncooperative with police, and refused to return to the residence.  “She...was switching up her story on her whereabouts,” according to a criminal complaint.

Williams, who reportedly cruised to Puerto Rico, has been free on a $25,000 bond since shortly after her April arrest.

Upon setting Williams’s release terms, a judge called the charged offense “egregious.” Citing witness accounts, the jurist added that, “this is not the first time something like this has occurred.”  (3 pages)