Sheborah Thomas, a 30-year-old mom of three in Houston, Texas, has confessed to murdering her two younger children, according to a report by KTRK-TV News in that city, and in a courtroom in Monday, prosecutors revealed horrifying new details of the chilling fashion in which she carried out her unthinkable crimes on Friday.
The bodies of the two children, 5-year-old Kayiana and 7-year-old Araylon “Ray Ray” Thomas, were discovered by police underneath the home of the killer mom’s next-door-neighbor in Houston’s Third Ward neighborhood Sunday, according to the Houston Chronicle newspaper, after she told a male acquaintance who was helping her move out of her home what she had done — and where she hid the bodies.
A 30-year-old Houston mother named Sheborah Thomas allegedly (pictured) drowned her 7-year-old son and 5-year-old… https://t.co/AZKlQyPDkV
— NoChill (@NoChillMonitor) August 16, 2016
The man, whose name has not been released publicly, told police that Sheborah Thomas made the confession to him in an unemotional, matter-of-fact manner, acting so casual as she told him, “I killed them,” that at first he simply didn’t take her seriously.
But according to the Chronicle report, as well as other media reports out of Houston, when she repeated the bloodcurdling claim — and even indicated where she had hidden the two little bodies — the horrified friend took action. He was able to drive long enough, without alerting Thomas, to find a police vehicle, at which time he pulled over and told the officers what Thomas had confessed.
The following video news report contains further details on the case, including reaction from neighbors of Sheborah Thomas.
https://youtu.be/7O_uVyCaj5Y
While investigators remain puzzled as to what motivated Thomas to take the lives of her two children, they also know that she has a third child, a 12-year-old boy, who she did not kill, In fact, on Thursday evening, Thomas called the boy’s father and asked him to take the boy, saying she feared he had become involved with a gang, according to a second Houston Chronicle report .
Jermaine Anderson, the 12-year-old’s father, said that he knew the boy was not involved with gangs but took his son anyway — possibly saving the boy’s life.
“I’m hoping my son will be all right, because he lost his brother and his sister and his mother, all in one day,” Anderson told the Chronicle .
The father of the two slain children, Danny Ray Thomas, is currently incarcerated on a drug possession offense, but was said to be devastated upon learning of the murders of his children.
Another mom who talked to Sheborah Thomas Thurs & Friday says she often talked ab pressure of raising kids #KHOU11 pic.twitter.com/16eFlkewmH
— Grace White (@GraceWhiteKHOU) August 16, 2016
According to details revealed by prosecutors in a Houston courtroom on Monday, nothing seemed out of the ordinary that day, when the two children took part in a school talent show, and were later picked up by their mom.
Thomas took the two kids home and fed them dinner, the prosecutors said. She then drew a bath for 5-year-old Kayiana, but when the little girl got in the bath, Sheborah Thomas pushed her head under the water and continued to hold her underwater even as the little girl put up a violent struggle for her life.
When the girl finally went limp, the mom placed her body on a bed, then called in 7-year-old “Ray Ray” for a bath.
The boy also fought his mom desperately, grabbing her hand in a vain attempt to save his own life as she held his face under the water, prosecutors said. But the 7-year-old, too, succumbed and died.
Sheborah Thomas told police, according to a KHOU TV report , that she waited a day, then wrapped the children’s bodies in bedsheets and dumped them in a trash container behind her house.
She then took a bus to her place of employment to request an advance on her pay, but the request was not granted.
Aunt set up a fundraiser to help family of children allegedly killed by their mother, Sheborah Thomas @abc13houston https://t.co/KB5lYrX400
— Lauren Lea (@LaurenLABC13) August 15, 2016
When she got back, according to the court records, she removed the children’s bodies from the trash and attempted to bury them in a hole she dug with her hands.
But the hole was too small, so instead she rolled the two little bodies under her neighbor’s house.
On Sunday, she called her friend, telling him she needed help moving out her home immediately. When the man showed up to help, he asked where her children were and she reportedly told him, “I killed them.”
While her motives remain a mystery — though the mom had briefly lost the kids to Texas Child Protective Services in 2012 — in another puzzling and frightening development, a source close to the Thomas family told KTRK TV that the mom had received a serious threat by telephone on Thursday.
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The threat resulted in a seven-hour visit to her home by investigators from the state’s CPS as well as the Houston Police Department, just one day before Thomas allegedly killed her kids. CPS confirmed that it had an open investigation regarding Sheborah Thomas, but did not say what they were investigating.
The source said that Thomas had pulled her life together after the 2012 loss of her children to the state.
Sheborah Thomas has now been charged with two counts of murdering a child under the age of 10, and if convicted, could be sentenced to death.
[Photos via Houston Police Department/GoFundMe]