Dead boy’s mom and boyfriend arrested in library searching news articles about themselves after 8-year-old’s skeletal remains found in Houston
Two adults, including the child’s mother, have been charged after an 8-year-old boy’s skeletal remains were discovered inside an apartment in Houston on Sunday, officials said.
The two were picked up on Tuesday at a public library as they searched news articles about themselves, KTRK-TV reported.
The Harris County Sheriff said late Tuesday that Brian W. Coulter, 31, was charged with murder, and that the boy’s mother, 35-year-old Gloria Williams, was charged with injury to a child by omission, as well as tampering with evidence.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said more charges were possible.
Williams’ bond totaled $900,000, including $350,000 for injury to a child, $300,000 for tampering with evidence and $250,000 for injury by omission, reported KTRK. Bond for Coulter was set at $1 million. Coulter and Williams were ordered to have no contact with the children or any other minors, or with each other.
“The complainant was 8 years old at the time of his death in 2020,” Sheriff Ed Gonzalez tweeted. “Coulter is the boyfriend of the murdered child’s mother.”
The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office said the child, whom police identified as Kendrick Lee, died of homicidal violence and had suffered “multiple blunt force injuries.”
His body was found in a bedroom closet, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Officials on Sunday also found three children living at the apartment, Gonzalez said earlier this week.
Sgt. Dennis Wolfford, supervisor of homicide unit assigned to investigate the case, said the boy had likely been beaten to death between Nov. 20 and 29 of last year. Investigators said Coulter and Williams had moved out after Coulter allegedly killed Kendrick. The children were left to fend for themselves with their brother’s decomposing body.
A 15-year-old child who lived there told the sheriff’s department that his brother died a year ago, officials said. The teenager lived at the apartment with his 7- and 10-year-old siblings, and without their parents, he told authorities. Investigators
Neighbors had been feeding the 15-year-old for the previous six months after noticing the parents did not seem to be around. But they said they did not know there were other children and had no idea that the conditions were so dire.
The children received medical attention at a local hospital after the 15-year-old called the sheriff’s department, which he did after texting his mother that he couldn’t take it any more. The 10-year-old had facial injuries severe enough to require surgery, authorities said.
All three surviving boys were “special needs children,” Wolfford said, adding that two of them had autism. Two other children that Williams has were not present in the apartment, authorities told KTRK, and it was no clear how old they are or who has custody.
The Alief Independent School District (ISD) had filed truancy papers against Williams in 2019 and 2020 after two of the children did not show up to school. District officials told KTRK that the children had last been enrolled in May 2020. In September 2020 officials tried to visit the home, but got no answer, KTRK said, as the pandemic had complicated monitoring efforts.
“It was very easy for these kids to fall through the cracks,” Bob Sanborn, president and CEO of Children at Risk, told KTRK. “Texas has always relied on teachers to be that line of first defense for child abuse and these kids never got to that place where a teacher could identify what was going on with them, or begin an investigation, or alert CPS or others to what was happening.”
With News Wire Services
