{"id":289598,"date":"2026-05-12T14:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/289598\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T14:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:12:08","slug":"texas-mom-23-charged-after-tests-reveal-her-2-young-daughters-had-ingested-cocaine-before-drowning-in-backyard-pool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/289598\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Mom, 23, Charged After Tests Reveal Her 2 Young Daughters Had Ingested Cocaine Before Drowning in Backyard Pool"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n

A mother has been charged for her alleged involvement in the deaths of her 2-year-old and 3-year-old daughters in Texas<\/p>\n

Laura Nicholson, 23, was arrested in Florida after authorities found cocaine in the systems of both daughters, who had been discovered unresponsive in their backyard pool on Feb. 11<\/p>\n

Nicholson is charged with two counts of injury to a child<\/p>\n

A mother has been charged after cocaine was allegedly found in the systems of her two daughters, who drowned in West Harris County, Texas.<\/p>\n

PEOPLE previously reported <\/a>that sisters, 2-year-old Kelsey Kite and 3-year-old Kinsley Kite, drowned in the backyard pool of their home on Feb. 11. They lived at the property with their mother and grandparents.<\/p>\n

On Monday, May 11,\u00a0 Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez revealed in a post on X <\/a>that their mom, Laura Nicholson, 23, had been charged with two counts of injury to a child for her alleged involvement in the death of her daughters.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur investigation determined that both children had cocaine in their systems at the time of their passing,\u201d Gonzalez wrote in his statement.<\/p>\n

\"Stock<\/p>\n

Stock image of police lights
Credit: Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter<\/a> for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez added that on Sunday, May 11, \u201cour Violent Criminals Apprehension Team (VCAT) coordinated with the Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force, who arrested Nicholson in Florida and booked her into the Lee County Jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

The medical examiner ruled the girls’ cause of death as \u201cdrowning and acute cocaine toxicity,\u201d according to court records obtained by ABC13<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Stock<\/p>\n

Stock image of police tape
Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

Click2 Houston reported that the children had benzoylecgonine in their blood in addition to the cocaine.<\/p>\n

The children’s autopsies could not confirm or rule out death from drowning because the cause was difficult to determine, according to Fox 26 Houston and Click2 Houston.<\/p>\n

PEOPLE previously reported that the girls’ grandmother found them in the pool when she arrived home just after 11 a.m., per Click2 Houston<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office said at the time that initial findings suggested that the children had snuck out to the backyard while their mother and grandfather were sleeping and their grandmother was at the grocery store, PEOPLE reported.<\/p>\n

Nicholson told authorities that she woke up hearing her mother \u201cscreaming and hollering\u201d after finding the girls in the pool, per Click2 Houston.<\/p>\n

She also told officials that the latch on the door leading to the backyard had been broken for two days, ABC13 and Click2 Houston reported.<\/p>\n

Authorities were called to the scene at around 11:30 a.m., according to Fox 26 Houston.<\/p>\n

Nicholson’s mother also accused her daughter of using cocaine, per ABC13 and Click 2 Houston, citing court records.<\/p>\n

Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW A mother has been charged for her alleged involvement in the deaths of her 2-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[106010,106014,106015,106013,106012,105965,106011,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-289598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-backyard-pool","tag-click2-houston","tag-cocaine-toxicity","tag-kelsey-kite","tag-kinsley-kite","tag-laura-nicholson","tag-lee-county-sheriff","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}