APNewsBreak: Dad charged with attempted murder

LUBBOCK, Texas – A father accused of abandoning his 4-year-old son along a rural West Texas highway in the dark has been charged with attempted capital murder.

Prosecutors say the charge filed Thursday against Carlos Rico replaces the child endangerment charge he faced after his son was found along Interstate 20 near Sweetwater about 3 a.m. Tuesday. The 22-year-old is accused of choking the boy and leaving him on the road about three hours before he was found.

Rico remains in the Nolan County jail. It is not clear whether he has an attorney.

Police say the boy was picked up by a local high school basketball coach and taken to a hospital, where doctors removed at least 500 cactus spines from his body.

Sweetwater is about 125 miles southeast of Lubbock.