PASADENA, Texas – A Houston-area father accused of stealing scrap metal from a burned-out Pasadena church left his babies in the car while he committed the crime, police said Monday.
Investigators said Armando Liceaga, 31, brought his young daughters along while he stole copper and left them in a hot car while he jumped a fence. He was arrested by Pasadena police on Thursday.
According to police, Liceaga parked his car in the sun with those two baby girls in the back seat, and then went through the fence to look for copper wiring in the rubble of the church on Red Bluff Road.
The vacant church burned to the ground last month in what investigators are calling a suspicious fire.
Liceaga allegedly stole more than $1,500 worth of scrap metal from the debris.
Police said they found the metal stacked in his back seat, around and on the two children.
Liceaga has a rap sheet that includes convictions for burglary, DWI and drug possession. Now he's charged with endangering his children and theft, which are third-degree and state jail felonies.
Those two little girls, aged 1 and 2, are in the custody of their aunt.