Gloria Williams has pleaded guilty to two charges of injury following the murder of her 8-year-old son Kendrick Lee in March 2021, according to Harris County court records.
The Houston mother gained national attention following the discovery of her three children living with their brother’s decaying remains in 2021.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office reports that her plea comes after her boyfriend, Brian Coulter, was given a life sentence in April 2024 for fatally beating Lee, according to People. Local news agency KPRC reported that at the time, a Houston judge told Coulter, 34, that the case was one of the most “horrific set of facts that I’ve ever had to witness, to listen to, and to image” in her career.
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In 2021, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters that Williams’ three children, aged seven, nine, and 15, had been left in the family’s apartment for several months with “skeletal remains… also found inside the unit.”
“The apartment was in a horrible condition. We saw soiled carpet, no furniture at all. No bedding, no blankets that we could see. We saw roaches and flies and a very bad condition for anyone to live in,” Gonzalez mentioned, according to a previous report by People.
The sheriff informed reporters that Williams’ eldest son had contacted the police to disclose that his sibling “had been dead for a year and his body was in the room next to his.”
Williams and Coulter left the residence in March 2021, seven months before her 15-year-old son notified police. At the time, KPRC reported that prosecutors claimed Williams tried to hide the murder of her son by sending groceries to the apartment once a month and continuing to pay rent.
Authorities found the three surviving children in the apartment and took them to the hospital. According to Sheriff Gonzalez, the children were “malnourished and showed signs of physical injury.”
Despite calling Coulter “manipulative,” Lt. Dennis Wilford stated during a press conference in 2021 that Williams should still be held accountable for her son’s death.
Williams’ sentencing date is set for November 11.
