Dad abandons 4 young children to go drinking (East Austin, Texas)

The dad is identified as HUMBERTO GARCIA-GARCIA. Was there a mother in this home? Sure doesn't sound like it. At any rate, her existence has been erased from the story entirely--even though two of these children were six-month-old twins. So if there was no mother in this home, did Dad have custody, visitation, what?

INVISIBLE MOTHER ALERT

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/police-father-abandoned-4-young-children-to-go-1971342.html


Police: Father abandoned 4 young children to go drinking
By Patrick George
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Updated: 10:37 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011

Published: 8:43 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011

A man has been arrested after police say he left his four children a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old and two 6-month-old infants alone in an apartment while he went out drinking with friends.

Humberto Garcia-Garcia, 26 , is charged with child abandonment, a state jail felony. He was in custody Tuesday on $6,500 bail and is being detained for immigration reasons, jail records show.

Garcia-Garcia's arrest affidavit said that about 10:45 p.m. Sunday, officers responded to a report that four children had been abandoned at an apartment on Reagan Hill Drive, near U.S. 183 in East Austin. The caller, a neighbor, told police that she found a young girl crying outside an apartment, the affidavit said. The neighbor also heard infants crying inside the home, the affidavit said.

The neighbor went inside the apartment and found two infants crying on a bed, the affidavit said. They had soiled diapers, so she changed them and put them in clean clothes, the affidavit said. When officers arrived, they found the apartment crawling with insects, smelling of urine and cluttered with piles of soiled diapers. They also found expired food in the refrigerator, the affidavit said.

Police found a phone number for the children's father, identified as Garcia-Garcia, the affidavit said. A dispatcher called Garcia-Garcia at 11:23 p.m. and told investigators that Garcia-Garcia sounded intoxicated, the affidavit said.

Garcia-Garcia told authorities that he had been drinking with friends at Club Carnival on Riverside Drive, the affidavit said. He met officers back at his apartment at 1:30 a.m. and "smelled of a strong alcoholic beverage," the affidavit said.

Officers estimated that Garcia-Garcia had left his children alone for 6 1/2 hours, the affidavit said.