A mother has been charged over the deaths of her two young children after she locked them in a car, and left them there.
The Texan woman, Cynthia Marie Randolph, 24, initially told investigators her two-year-old daughter and 16-month-old son locked themselves in the car on May 26.
But she changed her story over the course of several police interviews, finally admitting on Saturday (local time) she left them in the vehicle intentionally.
Ms Randolph initially said they were exposed to extreme temperatures inside the car for no longer than an hour.
But she later confessed she had found the children playing in the car, parked outside their house, and when her daughter refused to exit she shut the door to teach her a lesson. She said she thought her daughter could get herself and her brother out when ready.
She went inside, smoked marijuana, and took a nap for around three hours, on a day where temperatures reached the mid-30s.
When she woke, she went to check on the children and found them unresponsive.
She then broke the car window to make it look like the children had locked themselves inside, and she was trying to rescue them.
The pair were pronounced dead around half-an-hour after authorities were notified.
Newshub
