Mother charged after cocaine found in toddlers who drowned in Katy pool

A Katy mother has been charged after investigators said cocaine was found in the blood of her two daughters, ages 2 and 3, who drowned in a backyard pool on Creek Edge Court in west Harris County.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Monday that Laura Nicholson, 23, was charged with two counts of injury to a child after a three-month investigation by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators determined both children had cocaine in their systems at the time of death, deepening the questions around what happened in the home before the girls were found unresponsive.

Deputies responded to a life-in-danger call a little after 11:30 a.m. on Feb. 11, 2026. The girls were rushed by LifeFlight to a Houston hospital, where they later died. The case has since drawn intense attention across Harris County because it combines a fatal pool drowning with a toxicology finding that investigators say points to a wider failure in child supervision and safety.

Nicholson was arrested in Florida by the Florida/Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force working with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office Violent Criminal Apprehension Team. She was booked into the Lee County Jail.

Early accounts said the children lived at the home with their mother and grandparents. One early account said the grandmother had returned from errands and found the girls in the pool, a detail that has sharpened community concern about how quickly a normal afternoon in a suburban Katy neighborhood turned fatal.

The case also lands in a state with an alarming child-safety record. Texas Children’s Hospital says Texas leads the nation in drowning deaths for children under 5, drowning is the most common injury-related cause of death for children ages 1 to 4, and most young-child submersion deaths happen in home swimming pools. Those statistics have renewed focus on the warning signs that can be missed when toddlers are around water, especially in homes where multiple adults may assume someone else is watching.

For Harris County families, the unanswered question now is not only how the children got into the pool, but what systems around them failed before the call to deputies, before the LifeFlight response, and before two young lives were lost.