The comments were disturbing and shed new light on the case of a DeKalb County mother who is accused in the deaths of three of her children.

Rockell Coleman was in court, asking Judge Gregory Adams for a clarification of her bond.  Coleman wants to have contact with her two surviving children.

Three of her kids died in December in a house fire on Misty Valley Road.

Coleman has told police that the children were left in the care of a babysitter, but that is not what was told in court.

Assistant District Attorney Mirna Andrews asked the judge not to grant the motion, then revealed details of what police investigators have found.

"On that evening, at 11:04 PM, we have evidence from the mother's own phone that she was at a restaurant, eating dinner with friends," Andrews told the court.  "While her children were at home with no food and no heat."

Andrews stated that investigators had found evidence of just what the conditions were in the home that night.

"It was 38 degrees out.  There is evidence that there was a pan in the living room," says Andrews, "and they were lighting leaves, in the pan, to keep warm, while their mother was out eating dinner in a warm restaurant with friends."

Most of what Andrews told the court comes from the police interview with Coleman's 9 year old son, one of the two survivors of the house fire.

"He indicated, during his forensic interview, specifically, that when his mother left that day, she left the children alone," says Andrews.  "The child was very clear that the mother not only left them alone that night, but has left them alone on previous night and often leaves the children alone."

But police also talked with neighbors, who say that the children would often come to their house, asking for food or water.

Coleman's babysitter told police that, while she was not there that night, she had told Coleman weeks earlier that "her kids were starting fires again."

"These children were not just witnesses," says Andrews, "they're victims."

In the end Judge Adams denied Coleman's motion, repeating that she is to have no contact with any possible witnesses in the case.  At one point the judge asked the ADA if he had the power to revoke Coleman's bond, which he did.  But Judge Adams chose not to take that action.

Coleman faces three counts of murder, but is yet to be indicted.  She bonded out of jail, on the murder charges, at the end of last month.  A condition of that bond was not to have contact with witnesses, including her kids.