Texas woman arrested in Alabama for abandoning two children

Police said Raven Yates is charged with two counts of abandoning or endangering a child with no intention of returning.

Yates was taken into custody Wednesday by a joint effort between the Roman Forest Police and the US Marshals’ Gulf Coast Violent Crime Task Force. Police said she was living with a man in an apartment complex in Mobile.

Yates is being held in Alabama, where she is awaiting extradition back to Montgomery County, Texas.

Yates is accused of leaving her 12-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son at home alone from September 8, 2022 to November 14, 2022, police said. The children’s father, who worked in California, told police that he saw Yates’ post that she was in Alabama without her children.

The father also told police that his daughter regularly asked him to send food.

The police issued an arrest warrant on December 8, 2022. Since then, Yates has continued to actively post on social media from Alabama, leading to tips and leads.

The task force followed a tip to an apartment complex in Mobile and confirmed to the manager that Yates was staying there with a man, police said.

Then she was taken into custody.