Authorities were stunned to find three siblings living alone and in squalor at an apartment complex in Texas. But in addition to their disgusting living conditions and obvious neglect, the most shocking part of all was that they were forced to live with the decomposing body of their 8-year-old brother, who police now believe was beaten to death by his mother's boyfriend nearly a year earlier. The tragic story has been making headlines as shocking new details continue to emerge. In fact, a judge was so horrified by the details of the case that she raised the bond of their mother, Gloria Williams, 35, to a staggering $1.5 million.
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The gruesome case began to unravel after a 15-year-old boy made a shocking call to 911.
According to dispatchers, he told them that his 8-year-old brother had been dead for about a year — and that his body was still inside the home where he and his other two siblings lived.
Deputies immediately responded to the home, which was in the West Oaks apartment complex in southeast Houston. There, they found the malnourished teen and his siblings completely alone — and it was clear right away that something was seriously wrong.
It didn't take long for police to corroborate the teen's story.
His brother's corpse wasn't hidden inside the apartment, nor did there seem to be any attempt to cover him up. Instead, the rotting corpse was left out in the open, where the other children could see him decomposing in front of them.
By the time authorities recovered the body, all that was left was skeletal remains.
An autopsy was quickly able to confirm the child's identity, as well as his cause of death.
Investigators now believe that 8-year-old Kendrick Lee was beaten to death by Williams' boyfriend, 31-year-old Brian W. Coulter, 31, sometime in 2020.
Both Williams and Coulter allegedly left the apartment in March of 2021 and had been living at a separate residence just minutes away. But just one day after the siblings were discovered, authorities caught up with the couple and placed them under arrest.
Williams faces multiple charges, including felony injury to a child by omission, injury to a child (causing serious bodily injury), and tampering with evidence (human corpse), KTLA reported. Coulter, on the other hand, faces one count of murder.
Initially, Williams' bond for all three charges was set at a steep $900,000.
But after learning even more disturbing details about the case last week, District Judge Kelli Johnson raised it to $1.5 million.
Harris County District Attorney Andrea Beall told the court that Williams not only failed to protect her 8-year-old child from the hands of an abuser last year but also "abandoned her three (surviving) children" in the wake of his death. As a result, she failed her "primary duties" as a mother, Beall continued.
And sadly, that wasn't all.
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Investigators believe that Kendrick Lee was beaten to death by Coulter sometime around Thanksgiving in 2020.
It happened in front of at least two of his brothers, who said nothing out of fear. The body was left inside the apartment the whole time, where it quickly began to decompose.
In yet another disturbing twist, the father of three of the boys, Courtney Lee, said he had no idea his son had died until the case was in the news. Williams had reportedly cut off all contact with the father several years prior after learning he was going to marry another woman.
The father of Kendrick Lee, the 8-year-old who was allegedly killed by his mother’s boyfriend in Texas and whose body was left abandoned with his siblings, said he only learned about the tragic death from watching the news. https://t.co/8UdMmtLKdL
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) October 29, 2021
Williams and Coulter eventually left the apartment several months later, in March 2021 — at which point her remaining children (ages 7, 10, and 15) were forced to fend for themselves.
By the time investigators discovered the children, they had barely been surviving.
All three were badly malnourished and had been relying on the generosity of neighbors to eat for months. Several neighbors said they regularly gave the 15-year-old food but had no idea that he had other siblings inside the apartment or that they'd been left alone.
Beall also told the court that Williams is guilty of far more than just child abuse and neglect.
According to financial documents, Williams was allegedly collecting roughly $2,000 per month in government assistance for three of her four children — including 8-year-old Kendrick, according to KTLA. (Reports indicate that Kendrick, along with one of his other siblings, might have been on the autism spectrum.)
She continued to receive assistance well after the boy's death and well after she moved out of the home. During a police interview, Williams even acknowledged that her reason for fleeing the apartment was to keep her son's body hidden. However, why she left her other boys behind — in a roach-infested apartment with no furniture — remains unclear. In contrast, Williams and her boyfriend are said to have lived in a fully furnished apartment nearby.
As for what finally pushed the 15-year-old to call for help, the DA claims it was more abuse.
Coulter allegedly punched the 10-year-old child in the jaw several weeks before police were called to the apartment, but despite the boy's obvious injuries, neither one of the adults sought medical treatment for him. Eventually, this caused the boy's jaw to become infected, and he has since received reconstructive surgery to repair it.
All three of the children have been turned over to the state and are said to be safe. The trauma of what they have experienced, however, will undoubtedly be something they'll live with for the rest of their lives — a reality that their father knows will be difficult.
As Courtney Lee told the Daily Mail, he wants very much to be present in the lives of his remaining two boys but knows "it’s going to take some time."
In 2022, Coulter was indicted on capital murder, while Williams was indicted on charges of injury to a child, serious bodily injury, and tampering with a corpse. Today, Williams and Coulter are still in jail, awaiting trial.
