Inset: Laura Nicholson (Harris County Sheriff's Office). Background: The Texas home where Laura Nicholson's children were found dying in a backyard pool by their grandmother (KRIV/YouTube).
A Texas mother was allegedly passed out on her couch when her two kids, ages 2 and 3, were both found dying in a backyard pool. The woman was awakened by her mother "screaming and hollering" after she came home to find the girls in the water, cops say.
"She falls asleep a lot," Laura Nicholson's father told police about the 23-year-old mom, who is facing two counts of injury to a child for her "alleged involvement in the death of her daughters," who both had "cocaine in their systems at the time of their passing," according to court documents and Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
An arrest affidavit viewed by Law&Crime says police responded to the family's home in Katy on Feb. 11 after Nicholson's mother came home to find her two granddaughters in the water and called 911. She and the children's grandfather pulled the kids out of the pool with help from neighbors and tried to perform CPR on them.
"Nicholson told [police] that she had fallen asleep on the couch and was awaken[ed] by her mother … screaming and hollering," the affidavit says.
Nicholson allegedly lives with her parents and was "asleep on the couch" when her mother left to "run some errands" around 9:30 a.m. that morning, according to her mother. The children were "playing in the living room area" at the time, per the affidavit.
"[The grandmother] said when she returned just after 11 a.m. she observed the back door partially open," according to the charging document. "She said she then observed both children in the pool and began to scream and holler. She said several neighbors also came over to help out and called 911."
Nicholson's father told police that her tendency to pass out a lot "causes issues," but he did not elaborate, per the affidavit. The man said Nicholson had been living at the residence for about a year.
"[Nicholson] said her children are always getting out and running to the pool," the affidavit says, citing statements that she gave to police. "She told [investigators] that CPS questioned her last year about drug allegations. She also admitted that her mother woke her up when she got home."
The children were transported to a local hospital, where they later died. An autopsy revealed that both children had cocaine and a cocaine metabolite in their systems, and drowning could not be confirmed or disproven as a cause of death.
"[The medical examiner] stated that drowning is difficult to see on an autopsy and is usually determined by the facts and circumstance of the death," the affidavit says. "However, [the M.E.] did state that both children … having access to the pool without proper fencing and locks was extremely dangerous and not providing adequate supervision to the children could certainly have been a contributing factor to the deaths of the children."
State records show that Nicholson's mother had previously filed a complaint with Child Protective Services about her using cocaine, the affidavit says. Nicholson and her parents allegedly told police that the "latch on the backdoor out to the pool area was not working properly," which was confirmed by authorities.
Nicholson was charged on Friday after being arrested in Florida.
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