A Texas mother has pleaded guilty to charges related to the death of her eight-year-old son and leaving her three other children in a horrible home with the decomposing body of their late brother.
Gloria Williams, 38, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of injury to a child in connection with the 2020 death of her autistic son Kendrick Lee.
She was accused of knowing that her boyfriend, Brian Coulter, had hit her children and not intervening.
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 sons. Click on 2 Houston Reports.
Her guilty plea comes just months after Coulter, 34, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the young boy’s death.
Gloria Williams, 38, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of injury to a child in connection with the 2020 death of her autistic son Kendrick Lee
The young boy’s remains were left hidden under a blanket and were not discovered until a year later
Prosecutors have said Coulter beat and kicked Kendrick to death around Thanksgiving Day 2020, and Williams refused to report him to police because she feared her children would be taken away and she would end up in jail.
Months later, in March 2021, Williams and Coulter left the apartment but left Kendrick’s body under a blue blanket and Williams’ three surviving sons, then ages 7, 10 and 15, in a bedroom next to their brother’s corpse.
They had no beds to sleep on, because cockroaches were climbing everywhere, ABC 13 reports.
Williams and Coulter would return to the apartment every few weeks to drop off some food for the children, but they later claimed that Coulter would beat them during those visits as well.
The electricity to the apartment was also disconnected in September or October 2021.
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, left the apartment in March 2021 but left the other three boys in a locked room with Kendrick’s decomposing remains.
Officers found the boys: the three boys were all malnourished, and the 10-year-old with a swollen jaw.
The boys then told investigators how Coulter punched the eight-year-old 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 to kick Kendrick, who was on the ground and not moving, as he stared 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 child told police.
When Williams then entered the bedroom to check on her son and saw he was dead, she began crying and fighting with Coulter, her 15-year-old son said.
He told investigators he thought his mother would call the police on Coulter, but “she never did.” She then left the apartment, leaving her surviving children with their brother’s rotting corpse and without any adult supervision.
William’s 10-year-old son told investigators that when Williams came by the apartment at a later time and lifted Kendrick’s blanket, she discovered that “his body, feet and teeth had turned into a skeleton,” and that “his hair had been knocked out .’ His decomposing corpse is said to be covered in cockroaches.
The 10-year-old also claimed Coulter would also punch him, punching him in the face, stomach, buttocks and legs, and breaking his jaw three weeks ago.
When police arrived at the apartment on Sunday, they found the child 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 receive medical attention 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 reportedly looked up news articles about the case
At a news conference announcing the charges against the couple, Lt. Dennis Wilford described Coulter as “manipulative” but said Williams still had to take the blame for her son’s death.
“I would say they are both abusers,” he claimed. “He is an abuser physically and she is an abuser by negligence.”
But Coulter later pleaded not guilty to murder charges and faced a five-day trial in April.
Over the course of the week, the surviving boys repeated their claims about what happened, and prosecutors revealed text messages between Coulter and Williams after the boy’s death.
In one, Williams told Coulter that Kendrick was carrying feces and was not moving. She went on to say that her son “looked dead” and asked her friend to clean it up, according to ABC 13.
Other text messages showed Coulter telling Williams “it was in God’s hands” and “not to worry.”
Crime scene photos shown in court also showed the 10-year-old with a swollen jaw, which required surgery.
Coulter, 34, was sentenced in April to life in prison without the possibility of parole
Judge Kelli Johnson of Houston said the case was the “most horrific set of facts I have ever had to witness, listen to and portray” in her career when she sentenced Coulter to life in prison in April.
“I think about what his children have been through,” she said before handing down the sentence. according to Click 2 Houston.
‘I think of all three of them and their injuries. I think about how you can look at each of them and punch them in the face. So much so that surgery eventually had to be performed.
“And I hope that all three of them who are left will live very, very healthy and happy lives,” the judge said, noting that she was pleased that the boys appeared to be in the care of a loving family.
“Now you are leaving this court, but you are not leaving my thoughts,” she continued to Coulter.
“And I hope, sir, that if you’re in jail, I also hope that those same boys that haunted my mind will haunt yours, too.”
Williams will now face her own sentencing hearing on November 11.