A Texas mother has been charged with capital murder after the bodies of her two children were found under her neighbor's house, KHOU reports.
According to police, Sheborah Thomas, 30, confessed Sunday to drowning her 5-year-old daughter, Kayana Thomas, and 7-year-old son, O'Raylan Thomas, on Friday.
"She was very matter-of-fact in terms of what she stated she had done," Houston Police Department spokesperson Kesc Smith told the news station.
Authorities recovered the remains of the children underneath the neighbor's home after being called out to the scene just before 11 a.m. Sunday.
Thomas also has a 12-year-old son, who was reportedly not home at the time.
According to the report, someone who knew Thomas was driving by and saw her throwing trash into an empty lot across the street. When the person asked Thomas what she was doing, the 30-year-old said that she needed to move right away. The individual began to help Thomas pack before asking about the kids. Thomas then reportedly told the person what she had done.
The person drove to the police station with Thomas and told officers what had happened.
According to ABC13, Thomas told investigators that on Friday, after the children returned home from day care, she fed them before drawing water for a bath and calling her daughter in. Thomas reportedly confessed that once the 5-year-old was in the tub, she grabbed the girl by her head, forcing her underwater and holding her there until she stopped moving.
Thomas then put the girl's body on a bed before asking her youngest son to come into the bathroom and repeating her actions. Thomas allegedly told detectives that the boy struggled but also eventually stopped moving.
Thomas allegedly wrapped the children's body in bed sheets and put them in a black trash can behind the house. The next morning she went to work to try to get her check early, but her employer would not give it to her, so she returned home.
According to detectives, upon returning home, the mother tried to bury the bodies of her children using her hands and a piece of wood to dig a hole, but the hole was not big enough, and the bodies could still be seen.
The mother allegedly said that she rolled the children under the neighbor's house before returning to her own home to start packing.
According to KHOU, neighbors and family could not comprehend the mother's actions.
"She made sure she kept the kids clean," Shirley Baines told the news station. "She takes care of them. She goes to the store … to me, she was, like, a real nice person. They are good kids. They don't play with nobody. I mean, why would someone do their kids like that? I mean, why? They are innocent!"
Kita Smith told ABC 13 in another report that she was the aunt of the children. Her brother, the children's father, was currently in jail.
"How am I going to tell my brother about his kids?" Smith said. "While you were there, how did you feel drowning your kids? You felt something, you felt some kind of guilt, something told you this is not right, but you kept doing it?"
According to officers, Thomas has no known history of mental illness.
Child-protective services will be investigating with the Houston Police Department and will be checking in on the victims' older brother.