A woman has pleaded guilty to her involvement in the death of one of her children and abandoning the other three to live alone with him in an apartment as new details emerge of horrific murder and living situations.
A Texas mother has pleaded guilty to abandoning three of her children to live with the corpse of their brother after she moved in to a new apartment with the man who allegedly beat him to death.
Gloria Williams, 38, pleaded guilty to two counts of injury to a child in connection to the death of her son, who was 8 years old at the time of his death, per Houston NBC affiliate KPRC.
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Police first got involved when the oldest brother Jordan, called 911 on October 24, 2021 to report to police that his brother had been dead in their apartment for over a year, and their mother no longer lived there. The younger brother, Kendrick, was 8 years old at the time of his death, per police.
The three remaining brothers, aged 15, 10, and 7, were reportedly living alongside the body of their brother all that time after their mother had moved out to go live with her boyfriend in another apartment.
The Murder of Kendrick Lee
As they’d previously told investigators, the boys testified that it was their mother’s boyfriend, Brian Coulter, who had beaten their brother to death, kicking and hitting him until he’d stopped moving. The youngest brother said he was watching as his brother stopped blinking and his eyes turned black.
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According to CrimeOnline, the boys reported that Coulter had kicked and punched their brother in the back, face, legs, arms, and testicles until he died. In court for Coulter’s trial, one of the brothers claimed Kendrick was beaten to death because he was being selfish by drinking all the water in the room, per Houston Fox affiliate KRIV.
He was then reportedly covered with a blanket and left in the bedroom, per authorities. Responding officers Kendrick’s body in a state of decomposition so severe it was skeletonized with bugs crawling all over it. According to the criminal complaint, his date of death was listed as November 20, 2020.
Mom Moves Out
As reported by KRIV, Williams reportedly lived in the home with the body of her dead son from November 2020 to March 2021, before she moved in with her boyfriend, abandoning her other children. They would go on to live there until Jordan’s 911 call in October 2021.
Even after Kendrick’s death, Williams continued to receive money for him. She received a total of $2,000 a month for three disabled children, of which Kendrick was one. It was with this government assistance prosecutors revealed she was able to afford two separate apartments.
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As for the apartment, when police arrived, they found it had no furniture, filthy carpeting, and was infested with roaches. The boys told police the couple would show up every few weeks to drop off food, but that Coulter would also physically assault them at these times.
25 minutes away from their horrific living conditions, police reported that Williams and Coulter were living in an apartment fully furnished and stocked with groceries, according to KRIV.
The Harris County Examiner’s Office determined Kendrick’s cause of death as “homicidal violence” after evidence of many injuries consistent with blunt-force trauma.
Williams Jailhouse Interview
Coulter has already been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Kendrick Lee. Williams has been accused of failing to intervene in the abuse of her children, as well as failing to provide food and medical care to Kendrick before his death.
In an interview with KHOU from jail in October 2021, Gloria denied knowing that her son was dead in the apartment. This contradicts what investigators say she told them; they say she admitted she knew her boyfriend had beaten him to death in November 2020, and that she didn’t raise the alarm because he told her not to.
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She is accused of altering, destroying and concealing the body to get rid of evidence. Police also stated that she had initially admitted to knowing Coulter had killed her son, and that he’d told her not to tell police and she complied for fear Child Protective Services would take her children away and she would go to jail.
When asked why she abandoned the children, she insisted: “I checked on them every two weeks.” She didn’t elaborate as to why she didn’t notice her son’s decomposing body during her bi-weekly visits.
KHOU also spoke with the children’s paternal grandmother, Melody Robinson, who said that an even older child, a 17-year-old girl at the time, had asked to move in with her shortly before Kendrick’s death because of Coulter’s behavior.
“She just got tired seeing him abuse her siblings and when she stepped in to try and protect them, [her mother] put her out,” Robinson told the news station.
Gloria Williams’ sentencing is scheduled for November 11.
If you are experiencing or witness child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. If you believe a child is in immediate danger, call 911.
