An Atlanta mother accused of killing two of her children by placing them in an oven waived her appearance before a judge on Friday. Lamora Williams is being accused of the October 2017 deaths of her sons, one-year-old Ja’Karter Penn and two-year-old Ke’Yaunte Penn.
According to the arrest warrant, the crimes happened between midnight October 12 and 11 p.m. October 13. On the day of the crime, Williams called 911 and said her children were dead, the arrest warrant said.
“When I came in, the stove was laying on my son, on my youngest son’s head, and my other son was laid out on the floor with his brains laid out on the floor,” Williams reportedly told the 911 dispatcher. “I don’t know what to do. I just came home from work.”
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She further told police that she left all her three children with a caregiver from noon until 11:30 p.m. but found two dead after coming back home while the caregiver was gone. However, the arrest warrant said that Williams “knowingly and intentionally” killed the two children “by placing them in an oven and turning it on.”
Her third child, three-year-old Jameel Penn Jr., was not injured but watched his mother kill his two younger brothers, the police said. Autopsy reports cited by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said that the boys’ heads were stuck in a tipped-over oven.
“It was like a real horror movie,” Jameel Penn, the father of the children, told WSB-TV at the time of the incident. “It was Friday the 13th.” Jameel Penn told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Williams video called him after the incident and moved the camera to enable him to see what had happened.
Williams was in February 2018 indicted on four counts of felony murder, two counts of murder, two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of concealing the death of another, and one count of making a false statement, according to Law&Crime. The platform said she has also been charged with two counts of cruelty to children in the first degree, one count of cruelty to children in the second degree, one additional count of aggravated assault, one count of obstruction of a law enforcement officer, and one count of battery resulting in substantial physical harm.
The case has been delayed several times due to the pandemic and for mental health evaluations. After Williams’ arrest in October 2017, her family told CBS46 that she had a history of mental illness and that her children’s father also left her some months ago, making her situation worse.
Williams was in the courtroom on Friday morning but did not appear in front of the judge for a scheduled final plea hearing. The Fulton County Superior Court judge will set a future trial date, but it is not yet known when that date will be.
