Roman Forest police have found and arrested a woman from Texas who allegedly left her 12-year-old daughter and three-year-old son alone at home for seven weeks last year. 31-year-old Raven Yates can be seen smiling in the photo taken by cops after she was detained in Alabama on Wednesday, clearly unfazed by the accusations made against her of leaving her children to fend for themselves as she traveled to Mobile, Alabama where sources say she’d been living since allegedly neglecting the minors.
According to the police report, Yates had warned her daughter not to tell anyone that she was leaving because if she did, her step-brother would most likely be taken away by his dad, who didn’t have a clue about the alleged neglect until nearly two months later. It was further revealed that the father of the boy lived out in California and that he was enraged upon learning that the kids only had a small amount of food to eat while their mom was away.
Raven Yates has been arrested in Mobile, Alabama, and she’s headed back to Montgomery Co soon. She’s accused of leaving her 12 y/o and 3 y/o alone there to fend for themselves for 2 months.
She displayed a full-faced smile for the camera upon her arrest. pic.twitter.com/zTzSvkaKYA
— Briana Conner (@BrianaReports) March 9, 2023
When cops inspected the home on Maplewood Ridge Drive in Roman Forest, they claim there was no food in the fridge or kitchen shelves, though the boy and his sister appeared “healthy.” Finding Yates was no easy feat, according to ABC 13 after an arrest warrant was issued back in early December. When she was found this week, cops reportedly had to break down a bedroom door of a man’s apartment where she’s believed to have been staying the entire time. Yates is expected to be returned to Montgomery County where she’ll be formally charged.
When the children were asked how they’ve been able to provide for one another, specifically referring to food, they told authorities that the girl regularly requested her dad to place the orders for them. The report claims she would tell her dad that her mother was working late and that they hadn’t eaten, giving the father initially no reason to suspect something was wrong since the girl made no mention of Yates’s disappearance.
In a press release by the Roman Forest Police department, they said, “The father immediately flew in from California where he had been working at the time. The father had been informed that his child’s mother had been seen in Mobile Alabama without her children and realized they were home alone because he had been asked by his daughter to send food regularly.”
During her arrest, Yates seemed so nonchalant about the matter, she asked a cop for permission to apply some lipstick before getting her photo taken. “She was photographed in handcuffs with a full smile on her face and seemingly unbothered by the charges against her for allegedly putting her own children in danger,” Stephen Carlisle, who is chief of police in Roman Forest, said.