According to an arrest warrant affidavit, an 8-year-old girl was found walking alone near Highland and Lavaca in Beaumont at about 11:35 p.m. on Sept. 10. She told a woman who stopped to ask if she needed help that she was going to a store to buy chips for her younger sister. She later told a Beaumont police officer that her mother, Dawn A. Vickers, was working at a Waffle House and that she and her siblings were home alone.
Officers found five other children at a home on Grandberry Street, including an 8-month-old, ranging in age from infancy to 10 years old. The affidavit says insects were crawling across the walls and floors, and an officer reported that several children had what appeared to be insect bites. Officers reported finding only a few canned goods and a box of instant mashed potatoes in the kitchen. The affidavit does not say how long the children had been left alone.
A Jefferson County grand jury has returned six indictments against Vickers, 31, accusing her of abandoning or endangering each of the six children. Police said they found her working at a Waffle House in Port Arthur. Port Arthur police located her at the restaurant at the request of Beaumont police, according to the affidavit. Indictments are formal accusations.