The children were found alone in a hotel in Rosenberg on Monday.
Fighting back tears behind bars, Sarah Gonzales agreed to talk to us about her side of the story. She says reality is not the way police have described it.
Gonzales is being held without bond at the Fort Bend County Jail, accused of abandoning and neglecting her children.
"I love my kids. Just the thought of not waking up to my kids, it hurts," Gonzales said.
Police say she left her four children alone at a Rosenberg hotel. The oldest is 9 years old and the youngest is just 6 months. They say she left the kids at least three times that day, for between 20 minutes and an hour each time. She admits leaving, but says a longtime friend who was staying in the room right next door had agreed to watch the children.
"All I was doing was getting them something to eat. I never once left them by themselves. I told the next-door neighbor, Steve, I would be right back," Gonzales said.
Gonzales says she walked twice to a Jack-in-the-Box just down the street, once to get the kids breakfast and later, for ice cream.
Trying to make sense of the claims against her, she notes that one of her daughters had a fight with another neighbor's child that day. Gonzales thinks the neighbor called police because she didn't like the way she'd disciplined her daughter for that.
Gonzales wants to know why police trust the claims of eyewitnesses who might only have seen what they wanted to see and not her true motivations.
"I did not want to leave my kids, abandon my kids. It sounds just bad, the way they're saying it," Gonzales said.
Rosenberg police say they've found no evidence that she made arrangements for anyone to watch the children. Authorities say even if she did, the mother is still ultimately the person responsible.
The kids are staying with relatives and there's a CPS hearing next week for a judge to decide long term what happens to them.
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