DALLAS --- Police in Dallas, Texas say a woman and her live-in boyfriend locked three of her children inside a hotel bathroom for nearly a year with little food.
The stepfather, 37-year-old Alfred Santiago, also faces charges of aggravated sexual assault and continuous sexual abuse.
The "Dallas Morning News" reports the children, ages six, ten and eleven, were so emaciated that they threw up when child protective workers first tried to feed them.
Authorities say their cheeks and eyes sank into dark hollows, their ribs protruded, and their lips were dry, swollen and cracked.
The mother, 30-year-old Abneris Santiago, claims her abusive boyfriend was holding her and her children hostage and had threatened to kill them.
Police said she had "ample opportunity" to rescue her children.
She is facing a charge of injury to a child.
Both are being held in the Dallas County Jail.

Authorities discovered the children after their mother's brother, Abner Santiago, drove from Ohio to check on the family.
After meeting up with his sister, he called the police who accompanied them to the motel suite.
Abner Santiago said when he saw the children, quote, "My jaw just hit the floor.
I just broke down."
Their mother, Abneris Santiago, told investigators that the toilet had been broken for months but she would clean it every day to make sure her children were in "a clean place." A doctor's report said the children suffered from life-threatening malnourishment.
The eleven-year-old girl weighed 59 pounds, the ten-year-old boy 58 pounds, and the six-year-old boy only 29 pounds when they were found .

(Copyright 2009 by Newsroom Solutions)