Tragic news of boy, 8, whose decomposing body was found alongside his abandoned siblings in Texas House led to arrest of his absentee mother and his killer

Kendrick Lee, the 8-year-old boy whose body was found decomposing next to his siblings, is one of five siblings

Gloria Y. Williams, the mother of the children, lived with her boyfriend, Coulter, just 15 minutes away from the apartment complex where her 8-year-old son was found dead

Linda Smith, 71, is the grandmother of the youngest of Gloria Williams’ boy, one of the four who were abandoned in the Huston apt. for months to fend for themselves

Smith said, ‘I wish I would have known how bad of a situation those kids were in; I will adopt all of the kids’

Grandma Smith has shared photos of Gloria’s children, Jordan Lee, 15, Trevon Lee, 10, Ja’Veon Kirklin, 7, and deceased Kendrick Lee

Williams has an older daughter, 17-year-old Jasmine Rene Whitaker, who was not living in the apt., says Linda Smith  

The Harris County ME’s office Tuesday ruled that Kendrick suffered multiple blunt force injuries, resulting in his death by homicide

Gloria Y. Williams, 35, and her boyfriend, Brian W. Coulter, 31, have been charged

Coulter is charged with beating Kendrick to death, while Williams is charged with starving and neglecting her children

Court documents show Williams was sued by Alief school district twice for failing to enroll her children in school

Police said the couple were picked up by deputies at a public library, where they were looking up news articles about the discovery of Kendrick’s remains

The anguished grandmother of one of the young children who were abandoned and neglected by their mother says, ‘I wish I would have known how bad of a situation those kids were in; I would have adopted all of the kids.’
Linda Smith, 71, said she is sickened by what Gloria Williams and her boyfriend, Brian Coulter are accused of doing to her children.
Grandma Smith who son shares a son with Gloria Williams also shared photographs of Kendrick Lee, 8 with Gloria’s other children – Jordan Lee, 15, Trevon Lee, 10, Ja’Veon Kirklin, 7.
Smith revealed Williams has an older daughter, 17-year-old Jasmine Rene Whitaker, who was not living in the apartment.  

Houston mother, boyfriend arrested and charged after her 3 children are found abandoned and another child dead and left in the apt for at least a year

The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that Kendrick suffered multiple blunt force injuries, resulting in his death by homicide. Police revealed the couple were picked up by deputies at a public library, where they were looking up news articles about the discovery of Kendrick’s remains.
Williams, 35, is charged with starving and neglecting her children and Coulter, 31, is charged with beating Kendrick to death.

Smith’s son, Jonathan Kirklin, is the father of 7-year old Ja’Veon Kirklin. He has been in and out of jail for the last several years and hasn’t been a part of his son’s life.
‘All of Gloria’s kids lived with me for a short time in 2014, my son went to jail for about 6 months,’ she said. 
‘I soon found out when my son was in jail and I was at work, Gloria would have different men come over to my house. I don’t know what she was doing with them. As soon as I found out I confronted Gloria with it, of course she denied it. But I told her she and her kids had to leave.’

Smith said Gloria and her kids left the house and it was years before she saw Ja’Veon again, ‘Gloria just disappeared.’
A few years ago, Smith said Williams called her and asked her to meet at a McDonald’s and she brought Ja’Veon along for Smith to see. ‘Looking back on it now, I think if I would have asked her, she would have let me adopt Ja’Veon. It was just a feeling I got.’
Smith said she found out about what happened to her grandson and Gloria’s other children from the media. ‘I’ll adopt all of them. I’m heartbroken to hear what happened to them and especially Kendrick.’
‘I regret kicking her out, I should have never done that. I’ve asked myself, What else have this kids gone through with all of the guys that have been in and out of her life? Were the kids molested, abused?’
At one point, Smith had to sit down in a chair because she said she was light headed and overcome with emotion over the situation.

After several years of not communicating, Smith said out of the blue Williams texted her on August 31st. Asking Smith if she had seen her son, Jonathan.
Smith replied back on September 9, ‘Not lately. What’s wrong.’ Williams replied back, ‘Nothing I just want to see how he doing.’
Smith then asked Williams how her grandson, Ja’Veon doing, which Williams replied, ‘he doing good.’
Smith said that even though she hasn’t spoken with any law enforcement, she confirmed the 8-year old son who was murdered is Kendrick Lee.
The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office on Tuesday ruled that he suffered multiple blunt force injuries, resulting in his death by homicide.

According to additional court filings, Coulter and Williams left the eight-year-old’s body to rot in a closet, and then abandoned her other children.
Williams then told Smith that, her mother Hazel, was in the hospital, ‘U know my mom in the hospital she had a stroke so she can’t breath on ur own she been in the hospital for two weeks so I am going threw a hard time right now.
As Smith read the text aloud, she teared up, ‘knowing what we all know now, she had the guts to say that? That she was going through a hard time, when her kids were being starved, one was dead and they were left to fend for themselves.’ ‘The Gloria I knew never would have done this to her kids, but it looks like she did, I guess you never know someone.’ 
Brian Coulter, 31, has been charged with murder in connection with the death of the child, identified in court documents as Kendrick Lee. 

Gloria Williams, 35, Coulter’s girlfriend and the victim’s mother, is charged with injury to a child by omission, failure to provide medical care and failure to provide adequate supervision.   
The two were questioned and released hours after investigators performed their welfare check on Sunday, during which they made the gruesome discovery. 
Williams’ 15-year-old son, who had been caring for his two younger brothers with the help of a neighbor who brought them food and charged their cell phone when the electricity to their home was cut, called 911, prompting the welfare check on Sunday. 
According to additional court filings, Coulter and Williams left the eight-year-old’s body to rot in a closet, and then abandoned her other children.  
Both Coulter and Williams are scheduled to make their first court appearances on Thursday morning.  
Court documents show that the Alief Independent School District twice, in 2019 and 2020, filed truancy papers against the siblings’ Gloria Williams because two of her children were not attending school. The children were last enrolled in May 2020. 
However, both charges were later dismissed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Mother-of-five Gloria Y. Williams and her boyfriend, Brian W. Coulter, were arrested on Tuesday for abandoning and her children in a home for months at a time while the kids’ eight-year-old brother’s corpse decomposed in the house for more than a year. Williams, 35, was charged for abandoning and neglecting her young children. Coulter, 31, was charged with the murder of the deceased child.
The arrests were made two days after law enforcement officials found Williams’ three children abandoned inside a Houston apartment. During the welfare check, responding officers also found the rotting corpse of Williams’ eight-year-old son who had been dead for more than a year

Houston mother and boyfriend arrested in Texas over death of her woman’s child’s death

The pair reportedly, were arrested returning from the library where the had been searching for updates in the investigation in the death of her son, Kendrick Lee

The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office on Tuesday ruled that Kendrick suffered multiple blunt force injuries, resulting in his death by homicide. 
According to a report filed by the victim’s 15-year-old brother, he and his two surviving siblings had been living with his decomposing body in their apartment for a year. 
Shortly before the teen called 911 on Sunday, he first sent a text to his mother, complaining that he could not take it anymore.
The call into the help line led to a series of disturbing revelations, including that the three children, ages 15, 10 and 7, had been left to fend for themselves for several months, relying on food donations from unsuspecting neighbors to survive, while sharing an apartment with the decomposing remains of their 8-year-old brother – even as their mother and her boyfriend lived just 15 minute away.

Detectives with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office questioned the couple before releasing them on Monday pending the outcome of the criminal investigation. 
Child welfare services in Texas have also launched an investigation into the horror find at the apartment complex on Houston’s west side.