Couple arrested after whole family tests positive for drugs

WYLIE, Texas - An entire Wylie family tested positive for cocaine, according to eight indictments handed down Tuesday.

Jamal Grant and Taela Yates are indicted on four counts each of abandoning or endangering a child. They were arrested in May.

Wylie Police Detective Amanda Villalobos says all four of their children, ages 1 to 5, had been exposed to the drug.

"That was kind of a shock to us,” she said.

An affidavit states in January that the children's school bus driver had problems with the parents failing to pick up their kids, saying Grant "often smells like marijuana and appears to have been sleeping when he does arrive" to get them.

CPS took over the case, and the family was drug tested.

"I want people to report that when they have suspicions if the parents are using drugs,” Villalobos said.

The affidavit states the parents tested positive for both cocaine and marijuana and even the children's grandmother tested positive for cocaine. Investigators are still not sure how the children ingested it.

"Putting the cocaine out on the table or cutting in on a table and touched that area and put their hands in their mouth,” explained Villalobos.

No one answered the door at the family's home. CPS says the children are now with another family member.

Down the street, Amanda Foreman is concerned.

"Hoping that they have a support system somewhere else that can keep them safe and keep them out of that,” she said.

"The kids right now are too young to understand what's happening,” Villalobos said. “Their parents are the people that are supposed to look out for them and that's not happening."

FOX 4 interviewed the detective at the Child Advocacy Center in Collin County. The children received care there.

The detective says cases like this aren’t something happening more often, but it is a persisting problem for children.