A Texas woman accused of attempting to drown a Muslim child has been returned to custody after her bond was significantly increased, court records reveal.
Elizabeth Wolf, 42, was initially arrested on May 19 following an incident at an apartment complex pool in Euless. According to police reports, Wolf made racially charged remarks to a Muslim woman before attempting to drown the woman’s 3-year-old daughter.
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The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office charged Wolf with attempted capital murder and injury to a child. Although she was initially released on a $40,000 bond, Judge Andy Porter later raised the bond to $1,015,000. This decision came after a reassessment deemed the original bond insufficient based on public safety concerns and Wolf’s prior criminal history. Wolf is currently held at the Lon Evans Corrections Center in Fort Worth, as per Tarrant County court records.
Wolf’s defense attorney has not yet provided a comment on the matter.
Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), expressed relief over Wolf’s rearrest but criticized the initial bond amount. “I don’t know how that happened,” Carroll stated in an interview with Courthouse News Service.
Police reports detail that Wolf was first detained for public intoxication after a disturbance at the pool. The child’s mother, who has not been publicly named, told officers that Wolf approached her, asked about her origin, and inquired whether the children at the pool were hers. The mother was wearing an Islamic headscarf and modest swimwear at the time.
The mother reported that Wolf grabbed her 6-year-old son, who managed to escape, suffering a scratch in the process. Wolf then allegedly grabbed the 3-year-old daughter and forced her underwater. The mother rescued her daughter, who was crying for help and coughing up water, police said.
The mother also reported that Wolf made racist remarks, questioning her American identity. After being handcuffed, Wolf allegedly shouted to a bystander, “Tell her I will kill her, and I will kill her whole family,” according to a statement from CAIR-Texas.
In a June statement issued through CAIR-Texas, the mother, identified only as Mrs. H, shared the traumatic impact of the incident on her family. “We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids,” she said. “My country is facing a war, and we are facing that hate here. My daughter is traumatized; whenever I open the apartment door, she runs away and hides, telling me she is afraid the lady will come and immerse her head in the water again.”
The Euless Police Department has recommended that the incident be classified as a hate crime. The district attorney’s office has not yet commented on whether they will pursue hate crime charges.
