Cops: Texas Mom Left Kids in Hot Car to Teach 'Lesson'

A Texas mother stands charged with the deaths of her two toddlers after admitting the accidental tragedy she initially described to authorities was actually a darker one. As the Washington Post reports, Cynthia Randolph told cops that her 2-year-old daughter and 16-month-old son disappeared while playing on May 26; after a half-hour of searching, she found their dead bodies in her car on a 96-degree day. What Randolph now says really happened, per an affidavit: She found the children playing in the car, told them "stop your sh--," and get out of the car.

"When they refused to exit, Randolph told police she shut the car door to teach Juliet a lesson, thinking she could get herself and her brother out of the car when ready. The defendant went inside the house, smoked marijuana and took a nap. The defendant said she was asleep for two or three hours." At that point she found her children dead in the car; she says she broke a window to make it look like an accident. Authorities note that Randolph "created several variations of the events" over the course of the last month. Randolph was charged Friday with two felony counts of first-degree injury to a child causing bodily injury. (More child dies in hot car stories.)