Mother Killed Two Young Daughters, Police Say

A mother is believed to have killed her two young children following her arrest on Sunday, according to police.

The incident came to light after CBS 17 News obtained warrants pertaining to the case from the Raleigh Police Department. Late on Saturday night, officers were called to an area hospital after receiving calls about two dead toddlers, who were 2 and 3 years old. Following an investigation, the mother of the two young sisters, 29-year-old Launice Shanique Battle of Cary, North Carolina, was arrested and charged with two counts of murder.

Little is known about the case at this time, including how, where, when, and why Battle carried out the alleged killings of her two daughters, or why they were at a hospital when police were called. The investigation into the deaths of the girls remains ongoing with the Raleigh Police Department. Battle is scheduled to make her first court appearance on Monday.

Reporters from ABC 11 News visited an address linked to Battle following her arrest, but no one answered the door. Neighbors, who spoke with the outlet, did not mention anything that would suggest trouble at the home, with some saying that they often saw young children playing in the yard.

If convicted, Battle could face steep punishments based on North Carolina law. In the state, first-degree murder is punishable by life in prison or the death sentence. Second-degree murder has a minimum punishment of 125 months, or just over 10 years, in prison. The types of charges are distinguished by the degree of premeditation involved in the killing, which remains to be determined in Battle's case.

Newsweek reached out to the Raleigh Police Department for comment.

Battle's city of residence, Cary, is located just to the west of Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina. The two cities collectively form the Raleigh-Cary metropolitan region.

Another grim instance of alleged child murder occurred in Oklahoma City earlier this month. On the morning of August 6, a woman jogging through a residential neighborhood stumbled upon a suspicious vehicle and eventually discovered four bodies inside, one adult and three children.

Speaking with KWTV on the promise of anonymity, the woman who first discovered the bodies explained that she first suspected something was wrong due to the fact that the "car was running and it was parked three feet from the curb." Passing by the vehicle multiple times, she noted that the man did not appear to move and remained reclined in his seat.

Police later determined that the adult had been a father who carried out a murder-suicide after storming out of his home with his children hours earlier, having made several threatening statements along the way.