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FRISCO, Texas (AP) — A Texas mother reported as missing with her children for three days has been found dead in her car with the three children alive beside her.
Frisco police spokesman Colby Hill says detectives are trying to determine how long the children had been in the SUV with the body of Christine Thi Woo before being discovered in a Target department store parking lot in the Dallas suburb of McKinney on Thursday.
Hill said Friday that surveillance footage is being reviewed to establish a timeline of events.
Authorities have said the children — ages 1, 3 and 5 — were examined at a hospital but appeared to be well.
Hill says no suspects are being sought.
Woo's husband reported Tuesday that his wife and children had been missing since Monday morning.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas unemployment rate in February fell to 4.4 percent, down one-tenth of a percentage point from the previous month, showing job growth in seven of the 11 major industries monitored by the Texas Workforce Commission.
The agency said Friday 6,100 jobs were added in education and health services, marking the 37th straight month of gains in those jobs segments. Another 5,500 jobs were added to trade, transportation and utilities industries.
The 4.4 percent Texas unemployment rate compares with the national jobless rate of 4.9 percent.
Commission Chairman Andres Alcantar says Texas has added 170,900 jobs over the past year.
The Amarillo metropolitan area, at 2.9 percent, had the lowest jobless rate in February.
The McAllen-Edinburg-Mission area in the Rio Grande Valley was highest, at 7.5 percent.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Texas man accused of helping his friend, a former lottery security officer, attempt to collect jackpots from fixed lottery tickets has lost an appeal of his extradition to Iowa, where he faces charges of fraud.
Robert Clark Rhodes II, of Sugar Land, Texas, was charged last year by Iowa authorities with two counts of fraud, and Texas authorities arrested him March 30, 2015. He was released on bond as he fought extradition. A judge ruled last year Iowa has enough evidence to arrest him and Rhodes appealed. A Texas appeals court on March 8 dismissed Rhodes' challenges and said the extradition may proceed.
On Wednesday, Rhodes filed a petition asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to consider the case, said Rhodes' attorney Terry Yates.
Iowa wants Rhodes because of his ties to Eddie Tipton, the former Multi-State Lottery Association computer security officer convicted of fixing a Hot Lotto game in 2010 in an effort to get himself a winning ticket worth $16.5 million.
Iowa Assistant Attorney General Rob Sand, who successfully prosecuted Tipton last July on two charges of fraud, alleges Tipton disguised himself with a hooded jacket and bought the ticket, then gave it to Rhodes to figure out a way to collect the jackpot anonymously.
Sand alleges Rhodes reached out to attorneys in New York and Canada but both failed in their attempts to cash the ticket because Iowa requires lottery winners to identify themselves and prove they bought the ticket or acquired it legally. Since the men refused to disclose the identity of the ticket buyer the jackpot was never paid. Tipton couldn't win a jackpot because he worked at MUSL, a vendor for the Iowa Lottery.
Tipton, 52, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He has appealed and remains free on bond.
In October, Sand charged Tipton with ongoing criminal conduct and money laundering after investigators uncovered new evidence they say shows he worked with associates to fix jackpots and claim prizes worth millions of dollars in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
Tipton is scheduled to face a trial on those charges in July.
In Wisconsin, a ticket matched the Dec. 29, 2007, Megabucks drawing done on a computer Tipton's MUSL team in Iowa built. Rhodes claimed the $783,257 jackpot in the name of a company he founded called Delta S Holdings. Wisconsin law allows winners to remain anonymous if they collect the money in a trust or company name. Investigators, however, learned that Rhodes was behind Delta S Holdings. They also found bank statements showing Delta S Holdings transferred tens of thousands of dollars to Eddie Tipton in the 18 months after the lottery jackpot was claimed.
Sand said he couldn't comment on the Texas appeals court ruling in Rhodes' extradition case.
Rhodes could testify at Tipton's upcoming trial.
"We don't know that yet," Yates said. "It's a possibility."
Tipton worked as a computer security specialist at a company Rhodes founded in 1993 and later served on the company's board of directors. Tipton left the company in 2003 to work at MUSL in Iowa, where he built computers and software designed to randomly generate numbers for several lottery games.
Tipton was fired by MUSL after he was charged with fraud in January 2015.