Jan. 16, 2008, 1:56PM

By TERRI LANGFORD
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

A judge granted Texas Child Protective Services temporary custody today of six siblings left home alone by their mother who flew to Nigeria to marry a man she met on the Internet.

State district Judge Michael Schneider granted social workers' motion today to keep the kids in state foster care while they try to interview the mother and determine if other family members could qualify to take the children.

Shanell Monique Mosley, 33, left Houston on New Year's Eve after instructing her second oldest — a 15-year-old girl — that she would be back in a month after marrying Internet beau.

Social workers were called to the home on Jan. 2 after it was reported that eight children were left unsupervised at Mosley's bug-infested Cypress home. Two other neighbor children were playing with the Mosley's six, who ranged in age from 1-to-16 when social workers arrived.

Today, the father of Mosley's youngest, James Ellis Raiford, appeared before Schneider to inform the court he wanted to take his boy to his home in Baton Rouge.

Schneider asked CPS workers to conduct a home study and background check on Raiford before such an arrangement could be made.

Raiford's mother, who did not give her name, told reporters that she loves her daughter-in-law and that there are "two sides to every story."

Mosley, who married her Internet boyfriend, is still in Nigeria. She contacted CPS investigator Loree Childers last Friday by phone and in a brief, one minute conversation, informed her she thought she had left her children in the care of relatives and it was not her intent to abandon them. The agency has not heard from Mosley since.

However, Mosley has informed some relatives that she intends to come home this weekend. CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin said they have not been able to confirm that arrival date.

Childers told the court Mosley said the soonest she could leave Nigeria would be Jan. 23.

terri.langford@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5460358.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor