A Texas mother has pleaded guilty to charges related to the death of her eight-year-old son and the abandonment of her three other children in a horrible house with the decomposing body of their dead brother.
Gloria Williams, 38, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of injury to a child in connection with the death of her autistic son Kendrick Lee in 2020.
She was accused of knowing that her boyfriend, Brian Coulter, had been hitting her children and of failing to intervene.
The mother of four was also accused of tampering with evidence while keeping his decomposing body under a blanket in an apartment with her three other children. Click on 2 reports from Houston.
His guilty plea comes just months after Coulter, 34, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the young man’s death.
Gloria Williams, 38, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of injury to a child in connection with the death of her autistic son Kendrick Lee in 2020.
The young man’s remains were hidden under a blanket and were not discovered until a year later.
Prosecutors have said Coulter punched and kicked Kendrick to death around Thanksgiving 2020, and Williams refused to report him to police, saying she feared her children would be taken away from her and she would end up in jail.
Months later, in March 2021, Williams and Coulter moved out of the apartment, but left Kendrick’s body under a blue blanket and Williams’ three surviving children, then ages 7, 10, and 15, inside a bedroom next to the apartment. to his brother’s corpse.
They had no beds to sleep in, since cockroaches were climbing everywhere, ABC 13 reports.
Williams and Coulter returned to the apartment every few weeks to drop off some food for the children, but later claimed that Coulter also beat them during those visits.
In September or October 2021, the apartment’s electricity was also cut off.
But on October 24, 2021, Williams’ teenage son was able to call 911 to report that his brother had been dead in their apartment for more than a year.
Prosecutors have said Williams and her boyfriend, Brian Coulter, moved out of the apartment in March 2021, but left the other three children in a locked room with Kendrick’s decomposing remains.
Officers found the children, all three children, all malnourished and the 10-year-old boy with a swollen jaw.
The children then told investigators how Coulter punched the eight-year-old boy with closed fists and kicked him in the face, feet, back, testicles and buttocks.
Williams’ 7-year-old son also told officers that Coulter continued kicking Kendrick, who was lying on the floor and not moving, while looking at the younger brother who was in the room.
After Kendrick’s eyes turned black and he stopped blinking, Coulter covered him with a blue blanket, the boy told officers.
When Williams entered the bedroom to check on her son and saw that he was dead, she began crying and fighting with Coulter, her 15-year-old son said.
He told investigators he believed his mother would call the police on Coulter, but “she never did.” She then moved out of the apartment, leaving her surviving children with their brother’s rotting corpse and no adult supervision.
William’s 10-year-old son told investigators that when Williams stopped by the apartment later and removed Kendrick’s blanket, he discovered that “his body, his feet and his teeth had become a skeleton” and that “his hair was off.’ His decomposing corpse was said to be covered in cockroaches.
The 10-year-old boy also claimed that Coulter also hit him, hitting him in the face, stomach, buttocks and legs, and that he broke his jaw three weeks ago.
When police arrived at the apartment on Sunday, they found the boy with a swollen jaw. The next day at the hospital, the boy said his mother “was aware of the injury but did not seek or obtain medical help for him,” the prosecutor said.
Coulter and Williams were eventually arrested two days later outside a library where sources said they were looking for news articles about the case.
Coulter and Williams were eventually arrested outside a library, where they were allegedly searching for news articles about the case.
At a news conference announcing charges against the couple, Lt. Dennis Wilford described Coulter as “manipulative” but said Williams should still take the blame for her son’s death.
“I would say that they are both an abuser,” he said. “He is an abuser physically and she is an abuser by omission.”
But Coulter later pleaded not guilty to capital murder charges and faced a five-day trial in April.
Over the course of the week, the surviving children repeated their claims about what happened, and prosecutors revealed text messages between Coulter and Williams following the boy’s death.
In one, Williams told Coulter that Kendrick had feces on him and was not moving. She went on to say her son “looked dead” and asked her boyfriend to clean him up, according to ABC 13.
Other text messages showed Coulter telling Williams he was “in God’s hands” and to “not worry.”
Crime scene photographs shown in court also showed the 10-year-old boy with a swollen jaw, requiring surgery.
Coulter, 34, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in April.
Houston Judge Kelli Johnson called the case “the most horrific set of events I have ever had to witness, hear and imagine” in her career when she sentenced Coulter to life in prison in April.
“I think about what his children went through,” he said before handing down the sentence, according to Click 2 Houston.
‘I think about the three and their injuries. I think about how you can look at each and every one of them and punch them in the face. So much so that in the end he had to have surgery.
“And I hope that the remaining three go on and live very, very healthy and happy lives,” the judge said, noting that she was glad the children appeared to be in the care of a loving family.
“You will now leave this courtroom, but you will not leave my mind,” he continued to tell Coulter.
“And I hope, sir, that when I’m in prison, I hope those same boys who have tormented my mind will torment yours.”
Williams will now face his own sentencing hearing on November 11.