HOUSTON - A woman accused of leaving eight children
with little food and no money while she travelled to
Africa to marry a man she met on the Internet has
been arrested.
Shanell Mosley, 33, was met by authorities as she
got off an Air France jet Monday at George Bush
Intercontinental Airport, Harris County sheriff's
spokesman Sgt. David Crain said Tuesday.
Charged with child endangerment and child
abandonment for leaving the children in squalid
conditions, Mosley was expected to have a lawyer
appointed for her at a Wednesday court appearance.
After the children were discovered alone in the
home in early January, officials learned Mosley went
to Nigeria to marry an Internet acquaintance.
When she left for Nigeria on Dec. 31, Mosley told
her 15-year-old daughter she would return in a
month, child welfare officials said.
Prosecutor John Jordan said Mosley's six
children, now in foster homes, were starving and her
older children couldn't recall their birth dates.
Mosley's children are ages one, seven, eight,
nine, 15 and 16, Jordan said. The other two children
found in the home were three-and four-year-olds the
family cared for on behalf of a single father who
worked, Jordan said.
The nine-year-old son told authorities he and the
baby ate a still-frozen pizza for breakfast the
morning they were discovered home alone. There were
no diapers, baby food or formula for the infant, no
sheets on beds and fruit was rotting in a basket,
Jordan said.