Texas mother who blamed son’s life-threatening injuries on ‘white couple’ arrested for lying to police

Shelby Martinez, 30, was arrested on Saturday at her apartment complex where her son was injured and has been charged with making false statements to police, according to KFDX Wichita Falls.

Authorities say Martinez and the boy's father, Thomas Gates, tried to cover up how their child received life-threatening injuries.

Their two-year-old son was allegedly run over by Gates when he was backing out with his vehicle, but the couple blamed it on an "unknown white couple," according to police. Martinez and Gates are both black.

Gates was arrested in February, several days after the incident, for the same charge after coming clean to the police about how the incident played out.

According to authorities, Gates told them that a car driven by an unknown white female and male had pulled out of a parking spot at the Maverick on Maurine Apartments on Ridgeway and hit his son as he and his family were getting into their car.

After Martinez was questioned by police, they claimed that the details of her account were different from Gates'. Martinez was reportedly combative at the Fort Worth hospital and refused to give an interview to police.

Forensic evidence showed that Gates had lied to police about the location of where his child had been hit. Detectives found blood in the parking lot of their apartment complex, not across the street which Gates had stated, police said.

Gates, who is out on bond, informed police that he wanted to change his story and said that he had accidentally backed over his son, who had run behind the car. His second statement was corroborated by two other children present in the car at the time of the incident. >

Martinez's warrant for the same charge, according to the police, was served on September 16 when they spoke with her during an unrelated call at her apartment building, the outlet reports.