Houston, Texas Mother Ashli ​​Rene Lock Accused Of ‘Normal and Dirty’ Children

A Texas mother abandoned her two young children in a dingy motel room for weeks on end, leaving them with little food and dragging her 12-year-old daughter from school to care for her younger brother. His 1-year-old full-time, according to court records reviewed by The Daily Beast.

Ashli ​​Rene Lock, 37, was charged with child neglect after police discovered the children living alone in the trash at a Quality Inn in Houston.

“Staff noted that both children appeared malnourished and filthy,” said an indictment document filed by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office Thursday. “The one-year-old is sleeping in a dirty diaper.”

The 12-year-old girl told police she had “not left this hotel room for about a month,” court documents read. She also claims Lock, who works as a bartender, “did not provide enough food for her brother, so she gave him mac and cheese”.

Officials describe the living space as “something akin to Marvin Zindler that inspired a nightmare of unsanitary living conditions, with broken bottles on the floor, sketchy-looking drugs, slime in the fridge and moldy food all over the place. To quote the late Mr. Zindler, ‘it’s hell to be poor.’ It’s worse than being a poor and abandoned child.”

Zindler, who died in 2007, was a journalist dedicated to exposing fraud, corruption and abuse.

“She said that sometimes her mother comes home from work, sometimes not,” the profile continued. “The twelve-year-old doesn’t have his mother’s phone number and there’s no meaningful way to contact her in an emergency.”

The 12-year-old girl, who has not been identified, also showed police photos of the injuries she said she suffered as a result of Lock hitting her. She said Lock took her out of school to take care of the 1-year-old boy. The incident was first reported by Fox 26.

Last October, another Houston mother was accused of abandoning her three children, ages 7, 10 and 15 in a sprawling apartment next to the rotting corpse of their eight-year-old brother. Police said the 8-year-old boy had been dead for a year when they found his skeleton in one of the bedrooms of the house. When officers arrived, the 15-year-old boy told them that her mother and boyfriend hadn’t lived there in months, and that they survived thanks to a friendly neighbor bringing them food.

Lock, who in 2016 was found guilty of felony burglary and drug possession two years later, currently has a pending DWI case through the court system, according to a separate filing in the case. . Child Protective Services has now been engaged and the children have been placed with other families, it stated.

According to financial status records, Lock earned $1,000 per month at a cost of $1,900, and declared a total net worth of $2 in cash when she was arrested. Prosecutors asked for $75,000 in bond; Court documents say Lock was released after posting $1,500.

Lock has yet to have an attorney listed in court records and could not be reached on Saturday.