Little Girl Calls Dad Asking for Some Food after Mom Abandoned Her for Weeks with Toddler Brother

A woman from Texas, Raven Yates, married and had a child. After a while, the marriage turned sour and she and her husband went their separate ways. She had another child with another man and allegedly abandoned the two kids together.

Raven Yates welcomed her one child, a daughter, with her husband. Although their marriage didn’t work out, Yates soon moved on with her life, marrying once more and having another child. While Yates raised her two children, the father of her daughter had moved back to California, where he worked as a music producer..

Yates claimed that one of her exes had started stalking her after they divorced. She made a Facebook post claiming her ex-husband had started following her and noted that he had previously been an absent father for more than ten years.

While the father of Yates’ daughter was living and working in California thinking his daughter was safe living with her mom, Yates had upped and left. Her 12-year-old daughter was all alone, looking after her 3-year-old half-brother. The girl was left in charge of looking after her baby brother while her mom was away, and she was trying her best. Eventually, though, they ran out of food.

The girl was forced to call her father, even though she was hesitant to do so. Before her mom left them alone, Yates threatened that if the kids called the authorities, the siblings would be separated. Since the girl had a different father, Yates told her daughter that her dad would take her away from her brother, so she initially refused to call for help.

The girl did her best to look after her young brother but was ultimately incapable of doing so. Their living conditions degraded, and police were shocked to see how they survived. The Roman Forest Police Chief commented that leaving the two kids alone was extremely dangerous.

Desperate Girl Eventually Called Her Father
After seven weeks without her mother, the little girl eventually decided to call her father to ask for food. She rang him up but told him a lie to keep her and her brother from being separated. Instead of admitting that their mother had left them alone indefinitely, she explained to her dad that Yates was merely working.

The Roman Forest Police Department released a statement indicating that the mother-of-two had been living in an apartment complex in Mobile with an unnamed man.

In response, the California-based father promised to send some food. But things didn’t seem quite right to the astute dad, and his uneasy feeling was later justified when he received a worrying phone call. When the dad got on the phone with Yates’ mother, he realized his ex-wife had left her kids and returned to her hometown of Mobile, Alabama.

Police Chief Stephen Carlisle explained that the man’s ex-mother-in-law had contacted him to find out why Yates was back home, but her kids were nowhere to be seen. When the already ill-at-ease dad heard from his ex-mother-in-law, he jumped on the first plane and headed to Roman Forest to check on his kid. The dad also contacted the police and alerted them to what had happened.

The dad arrived in Roman Forest shortly, and the police were quick to respond. The investigators were shocked at the state of the house. The Police Chief commented, “The officers checked the bedrooms and discovered heavy urine odor coming from the 3-year-old’s bed.”

The children had been alone from September 28, 2022, to November 14, 2022, with little in the way of food and supplies. The Police Chief noted that leaving the two kids was a highly irresponsible thing to do, saying that for them to have had to survive for almost two entire months on their own was highly negligent.

Police reports also indicated that Yates had been posting on social media during the entire ordeal. The police used her posts to get a clear picture of her whereabouts and eventually issued a warrant for her arrest on December 8.

Mother Said Daughter Had Thousands of Dollars at Home
Yates was eventually apprehended in South Alabama a while after police found her children. The Roman Forest Police Department released a statement indicating that the mother-of-two had been living in an apartment complex in Mobile with an unnamed man. They found her due to an anonymous tipoff.

Reports have indicated that Yates also had a 14-year-old girl, whom the mom had reported as a runaway earlier in the same month she left for Mobile.

Yates was charged with two counts of abandoning and endangering a child without intent to return, while the children were taken in by a close relative.

Yates had the chance to explain her situation to a reporter who contacted her via Instagram. She claimed she fled her home because an ex was “trying to kill her.” She also asserted that she had hired a nanny prior to leaving, who was supposed to look after her kids during her absence. The mother apparently left her children to go look after her sick father, who was on life support.

Yates also claimed that she had left her daughter with “thousands of dollars to do and buy whatever.” Although the presence of the money hasn’t been confirmed, the Roman Forest Police Chief noted that there was no food left in the house when they found the children. He explained:

“There was no food in the house. Everything was empty. There [were] some dry beans and some spices. [That’s] about it.”

After officers arrested the mother, Yates was photographed smiling in the back of the police vehicle. She was found two months after initially leaving her two kids to fend for themselves and used the publicity to garner more traction on social media.

Reports have indicated that Yates also had a 14-year-old girl, whom the mom had reported as a runaway earlier in the same month she left for Mobile. According to sources, all three of Yates’ children have been recovered and are safely living with a relative.