Texas Mother Charged For Leaving Children At Home While On Trip (VIDEO)

A Round Rock, Tex. mother has been charged with child endangerment after leaving her 8 and 10-year old sons at home while she flew to St. Louis for a couple of days for business or a family visit according to a court affidavit, KXAN News reported.

The mother, Kristine Noffsinger, left on April 17 to go to St. Louis, and a day later received a phone call from Child Protective Services about her two children being left home alone. When Williamson County deputies went to Noffsinger's Round Rock home, they found the children "had been left to feed, bathe and attend school on their own."

Investigators said in an interview that the children admitted to being scared and that their mother had taken the family dog, Teddy, to a pet hotel to stay during her trip.

CPS issued an emergency custody removal after being alerted to the situation, and a judge granted temporary custody to the boys' biological father who lives in the St. Louis area, as Noffsinger and her children had recently moved from Illinois to Round Rock.

Although there is no "Home Alone" law in Texas determining what age is too young to be left home alone, CPS said that no child "should be placed in a situation that a reasonable person realizes requires judgment or actions beyond the child's abilities."

Sgt. John Foster of Williamson County Sheriff's Office said that there is "a line and a fine line, but when you take yourself out of the state, you are far, far away from being able to help these kids."

The officers said they were very surprised when they found the children left alone in the apartment. In a news interview with KXAN News, Foster called Noffsinger's actions "ridiculous."

"We're not talking about a dog that [you can check in on from time to time]," Sgt. Foster said. "We're talking about two children."

When investigators finally were able to contact Noffsinger on April 19 while she was at the St. Louis airport, she said that she realized "the children were no longer at the home when a friend she had asked to check on the children told her that they were gone." She had also called the children's school and was told they had not attended.

The court affidavit says that when Noffsinger was asked why she did not contact law enforcement when she realized that her kids were missing, she claimed that she thought the children must have been sleeping or outside playing. Noffsinger faces up to two years in prison, as child endangerment is a state jail felony.