Texas Day Care Owner Indicted on Manslaughter Charges

HOUSTON -- A Houston day care operator accused of leaving the children she was watching alone when a fire broke out at the facility has been charged with manslaughter in the deaths of four of them, federal officials said Friday.

The U.S. Marshals Service announced in a news release that the new indictments were handed down Thursday by a grand jury in Houston. She had already been charged with seven counts of reckless injury to a child and three counts of abandoning a child.

Authorities believe Tata, 22, a U.S. citizen, fled to Nigeria before she could be charged in the case.

Investigators say Tata was shopping and had left the children she was taking care of alone on Feb. 24 when the fire began. They say surveillance video shows she was shopping at a nearby Target store at the time.

Investigators believe the fire was started by a stove top burner that had been left on. Tata told investigators the fire started in the kitchen while she was in the bathroom.

The blaze also injured three other children. Two of the injured children remained hospitalized in good condition Friday at Shiners Hospital for Children in Galveston.