To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

CHARLOTTE – A mother now faces a long list of charges after two of her young children, who were left home alone, died in a house fire early Sunday morning.

Orgal Opata

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police charged 26-year-old Orgal Opata with two counts of murder, three counts of reckless felony child abuse and four counts of exposing a child to fire.

Police say 1-year-old Gabriel Hawthorne and his 2-year-old brother Josiah died in the blaze at their Rowan Street home at about 6 a.m. Two more children, a 4-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl, escaped the flames with the help of a neighbor.

Opata has a previous child neglect arrest on her record from October 2009.