"I could hear screams:" Mother accused of fatally stabbing her own 4-year-old daughter

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas -- A Texas mother is being held on capital murder charges, accused of stabbing her own four-year-old daughter to death.

It appears Laquita Lewis was wearing hospital scrubs in the mug shot taken hours after investigators say she stabbed her daughter to death.

The little girl, always smiling, was Fredricka Allen.

Her family is sickened, and neighbors are shocked.

"The day before yesterday, I could hear screams," a woman living below Lewis said.

That neighbor said she has often heard the 34-year-old mother fighting with her boyfriend. Investigators said one argument could've contributed to the little girl's murder -- but they will not say why they believe that.

Lewis' family members said they knew something was wrong when they received frightening text messages from her, indicating she was in the hospital after a car wreck. She allegedly told family she'd done something bad, and she was sorry.

Family members called 911.

When deputies arrived at Lewis' apartment on Timber Creek Place Drive, Allen was dead.

Neighbors said they never noticed problems between the mother and daughter.

"She talked with me. She was nice," a neighbor said.

But Lewis has a criminal past. In 2016, she was charged with threatening to kill her ex-husband -- the father of her three other children, not Fredricka Allen.