Mother Arrested After Drowning of Her Children Deemed 'Intentional': Police

A mother in Linda, California, has been arrested for homicide after she allegedly drowned her two young children in a bathtub.

In a statement on Thursday, the Yuba County Sheriff's Department said around 11:45 a.m., it received a call from the father of the children "reporting possible drownings at their home."

"Deputies responded to the home and discovered the unresponsive infant and toddler in the bathroom. Deputies immediately began CPR, but despite attempts at life saving measures, both of the children were declared dead at the scene," the department stated.

According to investigators, the father arrived home for lunch when his wife, Courtney Williams, 26, "allegedly told him that she had hurt the children." The father allegedly found them "unresponsive in the bathtub full of water." The children were only 5-months-old and 2-and-a-half-years-old.

"At this time, detectives believe the apparent drowning of the boys was intentional," the department wrote, adding that the ongoing investigation is "in the very early stages."

"The tragic loss of five-month-old Holden and his two-and-a-half-year old brother Ronin reverberates throughout our department and into the community," Yuba County Sheriff Wendell Anderson said in a statement. "There are no words to adequately describe the sadness we feel for the family at this time."

Newsweek has reached out to the Yuba County Sheriff's office for comment.

Heather Ronson, a neighbor of the family, told news station KCRA that her children would sometimes play with Ronin.

"I just wish she would have come out and asked for help," Ronson said. "I would have helped her. I would have done anything to help her."

In a separate incident in New Jersey in December, a 26-year-old mother was arrested and accused of stabbing her infant daughter to death. Law enforcement officials responded to a call at a residence and found the mother "arguing with another person and the body of a deceased infant with visible stab wounds to the chest," according to a local prosecutor's office.

Last November, also in New Jersey, a mother was accused of killing her 7-year-old daughter and 8-month-old son. Police found the children unresponsive, restrained and bound in their car seats. The mother was charged with two counts of first-degree murder.