In a small, timid voice, the Houston girl testified in her own mothers child abandonment trial. The 16-year-old explained what happened before CPS caseworkers took her and her five siblings away from their home.
The teen said while her mother, Shanell Mosley, went to Africa and got married, she expected her aunt, Schaqual, would come watch them.
The aunt never arrived. That's something Mosley's lawyers say she didn't know until after police took away her kids, proof they say the mother did not abandon her children.
"She had only left with the knowledge that her sister was on the bus and would be there within two hours," said defense attorney Juanita Barner. "She had no idea of the events that took place."
From the stand, the teen admitted she never told her mother their aunt had not come to babysit them.
"Did she ask to speak with Schaqual," the defense asked the teen.
"I lied," responded the teen.
"What did you tell her specifically?"
"I told her Schaqual was at the store."
"Her aunt had instructed her to lie to her mother rand to lie to everyone else to say that she was actually physically there when she was not," said Barner.
While her mother was away, the teen also admitted she threw a party and drove her mothers car several times without permission and got into two different accidents.
Prosecutors got the teen to admit she often breaks the rules.
Schaqual backed up the teens claim on the stand. She says she lied to her own sister.
Mosley's been in jail since coming home in January. If convicted of child abandonment, she faces six months to two years in state jail.
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