A woman who was arrested after her three*children drowned said she tried desperately to save them.
Patricia Allen has not spoken publicly since that terrible day in June, although she has been judged harshly by public opinion. On*Monday, she broke her silence.
"My children knew how to swim. I would never put them in a situation like that," said the 31-year-old mom.
She knows why people would consider her an unfit mother. She was, after all, charged with injury to a child after her three*young children drowned in a murky apartment pool just a few feet from her reach. Witnesses told Irving police she might have been on her phone.
Patricia Allen said she moved to Irving to escape the violence of Chicago. Now she's dealing with the tragedy of three children who died while trying to stay cool.
Authorities placed Allen's two surviving children in foster care.
"It's indescribable pain," she said tearfully. "
I was never on the phone. I never took a phone outside with me.*I was in the pool with my children. *I tried to save them. They can swim.*I can swim."
Apartment management gave them permission to swim on that day.*The water was cloudy at the deep end, but others had been in.
"In the shallow end I could see my feet. It was clear," Allen said.
She said she told her two*sons and daughter to stay in the shallow end. *Anthony, August and Trishawn were 11, 10 and 9. *Allen said she was twirling her three-year-old son in the water.
"About the third time I spun in a circle, I noticed that my nine-year-old,*Trishawn, was being pulled under the water," she said. "I seen his red shorts and side of his face as he was being pulled in."
She believes one child slipped under, and the others were pulled in as they struggled. She said*there was no sound...*no warning.
"I put my head under water. I opened my eyes. I couldn't see nothing," Allen said.
She said she set her three-year-old out of the pool, then searched for her drowning children.
But the boy jumped back in and went under. She had to stop to save him. A*"Sophie's choice"*?*making a life-or-death decision about her own children.
"I dived back in the pool where I thought I last seen them. I couldn't see them... couldn't find them...*couldn't feel them," Allen said.
She covered her face*with her hands and took a deep breath.
Attorney Howard Rosenstein took Allen's case for free, and hired a private investigator to pore over phone records and to interview people who know the family.
"
I have the proof that she was never on her phone and never inattentive...*I have that evidence," Rosenstein said.
He said if there is fault in this tragedy, it lies with apartment management for opening an unsafe pool. The complex had been cited in previous years for the same issue.
"In our society, we're searching for instant justice in a hard case," the lawyer said. *"Every time there's a child death, we want immediate justice."
He said if this case goes to a grand jury, he will recommend that Allen testify.
"There's nothing to hide," Rosenstein said.
"I watched them pull my children out of the pool, one by one," Patricia Allen said as *tears streaked her face. "I tried to give my daughter CPR."
Patricia Allen grew up in a series of foster homes in Chicago. *She and her longtime boyfriend brought the family to Texas a couple of years ago, seeking a safer life and better jobs.
"In Chicago, there's so much violence," she said. "So many children dying."
Allen had her GED and was a certified nurse's aide. Records show no criminal history. She said she also has no CPS history and no drug history. CPS says she does have a history with the agency, but the records are currently sealed.
"They were intelligent. Beautiful," she said. "They were wonderful children."
Allen said she couldn't save her three*oldest children. Now, Patricia Allen hopes to clear her name, regain custody of her surviving son and daughter,*and try again to give them a better life.
She said the hope of that future is the only thing getting her through the pain.