Patricia Allen, a Texas mother, has been charged with one felony count of injury to a child after three of her five kids drowned in a swimming pool at their apartment building.
None of Allen’s children were able to swim, and yet she took all of them down to the pool. She was in the shallow end with her two youngest when the three older children headed toward deeper water and eventually drowned.
August Smith, Allen’s 10-year-old daughter, was pronounced dead at the scene. Treshawn Smith, 9, and Anthony Smith, 11, her two sons, died the next day.
According to police, it was initially difficult to find the drowned children because of how murky the water in the swimming pool was. This is not the first time the apartment building’s two swimming pools have had issues, with cloudy water and unsafe conditions being noted during inspections.
Allen could face two to twenty years in prison for her felony charge.