WEBSTER, Texas — A mother has been charged with child abandonment more than four months after her 3-year-old drowned in an apartment complex pool.
A grand jury decided there was probable cause to charge Christina Meeks, 32, in connection to the drowning.
Prosecutors said on July 3, Meeks left Mars Bedell and her other young children at an apartment complex pool in Webster for more than an hour.
KHOU 11 covered Bedell's story after he helped save the lives of four other people through organ donation.
We talked to Meeks about that decision and she said her superhero-loving boy had become a real superhero to others by saving lives.
“The only way that I could fathom to honor him was to make him a superhero to allow life to be given," Meeks said back in July.
KHOU 11 legal analyst Carmen Roe said the charge isn’t a common one because it’s a difficult decision for a grand jury to make.
“You have to show two things that are significant here,” Roe explained. “One is that the mother’s actions were unreasonable and placed the child in imminent danger of death serious bodily injury or impairment.”
In court, it was revealed that Meeks has three other children, including a 12-year-old she still has custody of and two younger boys no longer in her custody. Meeks told the judge they were taken after Mars’ death, although it’s unclear who has custody.
“This case is tragic,” Roe said. “We have the death of a young boy, the donation of his organs to save others’ lives, and then we have a mother who is grieving and now sitting in the Harris County Jail.”
Meeks’ bail has been set at $25,000. If found guilty, anything from probation to 25 years in prison is on the table, according to Roe.