HOUSTON—A 28-year-old woman has been charged in the stabbings of two young siblings at their Harris County home Wednesday night.
It happened at Greens Road and Mesa.
Harris County investigators said the children – a 9-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy – were both stabbed multiple times.
"(They had) defensive wounds and other wounds to the chest, to the head and back area," Lt. Jesse Inocencio said.
The suspect, Regina Umagat, is facing two counts of injury to a child with serious bodily injury and is being held without bond.
Investigators said Umagat was babysitting the children at the time of the stabbings.
Neighbors said Umagat is a distant relative of the victims, who lived in the home with them and their grandparents.
"I don’t know if she snapped for some reason or another," next-door neighbor Gary Epps said, adding that he thought Umagat may have had mental problems.
Investigators said they received a call about the stabbings from another neighbor, who told them Umagat was beating on her front door, covered in blood, screaming that she had "stabbed the children."
When deputies arrived, they said they found Umagat lying on the neighbor’s driveway with her hands interlocked behind her head.
Deputies said Umagat told them she’d stabbed the kids, and they were at the home across the street.
When deputies entered the home, no one was there.
Moments later, dispatch told the deputies that two juvenile stabbing victims had arrived at the emergency room at Northeast Memorial Hospital. They apparently were rushed there in a private vehicle by family members.
Both children were listed in critical, but stable condition.
They were transferred via Life Flight to Memorial Hermann, where they remained Thursday.
Epps said the children were adopted by their grandparents.
His said his children are friends with the victims, and he spoke with the grandparents about the incident Thursday morning.
He said he was told the boy ran lock the door after the stabbings and then played dead in case the suspect returned. The little girl was stabbed in the head, Epps was told.
CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin told the Houston Chronicle that the wounded boy was able to call his grandparents after he was stabbed.
Olguin said the grandparents had gone to the store and left the children in the care of Umagat, their niece.
The boy was stabbed between five and seven times, and the girl was stabbed twice, Olguin told the Chronicle.
Olguin said the family is from Guam, and the children’s biological parents are not in the U.S.
The family had no prior history with CPS, the Chronicle reports.
