Laura Dean

Mother arrested after 7-year-old daughter found dead inside home. She joked about poisoning someone hours earlier: Police

Texas police arrested the mother of a girl who was found dead inside her home on Friday, hours after she posted a joke on Facebook about killing a spouse.

Authorities in Bay City, Texas, were asked to perform a welfare check around 2:30 p.m. Friday at the apartment of 26-year-old Lauren Kay Dean, KTRK-TV reports. Inside, officers found a dead 7-year-old girl. She had been bedridden because of medical conditions, according to the television station.

Two additional children – 5 years old and 3 months old – were found in the apartment and removed.

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“There was all kinds of police tape, police over there, people walking around,” a neighbor told the television station.

Neighbors also said they were shocked to hear the allegations.

“That’s really sad because I have a 7-year-old,” one woman told the television station. “I wonder how that happened without anybody knowing, especially if she had other kids, too.”

Another neighbor said she had seen the deceased 7-year-old playing around the apartment building previously.

After police announced the arrest on Facebook, commenters expressed concern for Dean’s surviving children.

“My heart hurts for her family and for her other children,” one commenter wrote.

Dean’s last public Facebook post was on Friday morning, hours before she was arrested. The post appeared to be a joke about a woman who wanted to kill her husband.

“I would like to buy FAST KILLING POISON FOR HUMANS,” the post read, in part.

Dean was booked into the Matagorda County Jail and is facing several second-degree felony charges: endangering a child, imminent danger bodily injury and abandonment.

Bay City Police Officers were summoned to an apartment in the 2200 Block of Bordeaux in Bay City, on January 31, 2020 at…

Posted by Bay City, Texas Police Department on Saturday, February 1, 2020

 

Detectives could be seen gathering evidence at the apartment Friday, as the death remains under investigation.

To report information about the case, call Bay City detectives Stephen Lunsford or Reyna Perez at 979-245-8500.

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[Feature Photo: Laura Dean/Facebook]