Mom charged with murder, 2nd child dies

IRVING, Texas - A Dallas-area mother accused of strangling to death her two young children with a wire was charged with one count of capital murder Wednesday, police said.

A second murder charge against 30-year-old Saiqa Akhter was being prepared, said David Tull, a police spokesman in Irving. Akhter was being held at a jail in the Dallas suburb.

The mother called 911 on Monday evening, telling police she had used a wire around the necks of her children and both had turned blue, according to an affidavit for a search and arrest warrant released by police Tuesday. The warrant said police found the children in a bedroom of their Irving apartment.

Five-year-old Zain Akhter was pronounced dead at a hospital Monday, while his sister, 2-year-old Faryaal Akhter, was revived and placed on life support, the affidavit said. The girl died Tuesday night, the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office said.

The medical examiner's office ruled the boy's death a homicide by strangulation and planned an autopsy later Wednesday on the girl.

Saiqa Akhter's uncle, Wasimul Haque, told T he Dallas Morning News that the woman had been depressed since moving into a new apartment in Irving.

The children's father, Rashid Akhter, emigrated from Pakistan in the late 1990s, the newspaper reported. He married Saiqa several years later.

The woman has requested a court-appointed attorney but one has yet to be assigned, an Irving jail official said.