Twin Infants Found Abandoned After Intoxicated Mother Crashed Her Car And Walked Away

Harrison County -- Twin infants have been found all alone in two different locations in Texas after their inebriated mother crashed her car and walked away.

The incident took place in Harrison County at around 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, WBRC reported.

The Harrison County Sheriff's Office said deputies responded after receiving multiple 911 calls about a woman walking eastbound on I-20 and running into traffic.

"HCSO Patrol Deputies and Texas DPS Troopers responded and located the female, identified as Fantasia Martinez, 26, of Marshall," the sheriff's office wrote in a news release posted on Facebook. "Martinez appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and possibly narcotics due to her erratic behavior and difficulty making complete sense of the situation."

Harrison County Sheriff Brandon Fletcher told KLTV the woman had "come out of the woods." "She was belligerent. They immediately felt she was under the influence of something. Things just weren’t right, stories weren't adding up," he explained.

Martinez was arrested and placed in the back of the patrol vehicle. She told deputies her car "had broken down" and her children were still inside the vehicle.

Deputies found the vehicle after a frantic two-hour search. The engine was still running, and the car appeared to have crashed through multiple road barricades.

A 6-month-old baby was found in the backseat of the wrecked vehicle. A window of the car had to be broken to rescue the infant.

"One child-seat, one child. One's gone. We didn't know whether she took one child in the woods and couldn't find it. We couldn't make sense of her story," the sheriff added.

As the infant was rescued from the car, Martinez escaped custody from the patrol unit and resisted before deputies eventually re-secured her. The mother then began asking about the second baby.

Around 60 first responders joined the search to find the second infant. During the search, deputies received the address of a residence Martinez had recently moved to.

"When they arrived, they could see a car seat in the living room sitting on a coffee table. We forced entry and sure enough, the baby was sitting in a car seat on the coffee table. It had been left at home alone," Fletcher said, as per the outlet.

The baby was found uninjured after being left alone at home.

"Everybody knew we had a mission and we had to find the kid. We weren't going home without the kid," the sheriff went on to say.

Both babies are safe and were placed in the custody of Child Protective Services.

Meanwhile, Martinez was taken to the Harrison County Jail. She faces a charge of driving while intoxicated, two counts of endangering a child, one count of resisting arrest and one count of escaping custody.

The sheriff thanked the different law enforcement agencies that assisted in locating the twin infants. "It is heartbreaking to know that some children have to live in these conditions, but I am glad no lives were lost," he wrote in his office's news release.