Gloria Yvette Williams, and Brian Ward Coulter.
A 35-year-old mother and her 31-year-old boyfriend have been formally indicted for allegedly killing her 8-year-old son then abandoning the victim’s three young brothers to live in the apartment with his skeletal remains for nearly a year. A Harris County grand jury on Tuesday returned a true bill formally indicting Brian W. Coulter and Gloria Y. Williams on a slew of felonies in the death of Kendrick Lee and the subsequent suffering of his siblings, Houston ABC affiliate KTRK reported.
“Brian Coulter has been indicted for capital murder,” Harris County Assistant District Attorney Andrea Beall reportedly said during a Tuesday press conference. “It’s the intentional knowing and killing of a child under 10, and Gloria Williams has been indicted on injury to a child, serious bodily injury, and tampering with a corpse, which is a second-degree felony.”
As previously reported by Law&Crime, Coulter and Williams were initially arrested in October 2021. Williams is accused of turning a blind eye to the long-term abuse of her four sons at the hands of Coulter. Investigators believe Coulter eventually beat young Kendrick to death in approximately November 2020, prosecutors said. The couple then allegedly abandoned the three surviving boys—ages seven, 10, and 15—in their Houston apartment with Kendrick’s corpse while they moved into another nearby apartment in approximately March 2021. Williams allegedly arranged to have groceries delivered to the apartment housing Kendrick’s corpse and her three surviving sons once per month and continued to pay the lease on the property to avoid scrutiny.
Authorities were only notified of the grisly scenario when the 15-year-old called the police in October and told an officer about their horrific living conditions, including the fact that his dead brother’s body was still in the apartment.
Williams allegedly knew that Kendrick was dead in November 2020 but never stepped forward to tell authorities the truth because Coulter told her not to and because she feared going to prison and losing her remaining kids to child protective services, authorities said according to a report from Chicago ABC affiliate WLS-TV.
All three of the abandoned children, whose names have not been reported because they are juveniles, were also allegedly subjected to physical abuse. One of the kids reportedly required facial reconstructive surgery after being found by authorities, according to a report from The Houston Chronicle.
Per KTRK, ADA Beall said that all three of the surviving children have since been placed in foster care and are being kept together. Their older sister has reportedly lived with a relative for years and is not involved in the case against Coulter or Williams.
A state judge set Coulter’s bond at $1 million. Williams’ bond is set at $900,000.
ADA Beall concluded Tuesday’s remarks by encouraging the public to remain vigilant for signs that children are in distress.
“That’s why it’s so important, and we’ve been trying to get the message out, if you see something, say something,” she reportedly said. “Especially now in the time of COVID when people are spending more time at home, it’s really important that people report any sort of abuse that they see.”
[image via Harris County Jail]