Sheriff’s deputies in Harris County, Texas, made a horrifying discovery in October 2021 when responding to a call for help at an apartment complex. It came after a 15-year-old boy dialed 911 and told the dispatcher a disturbing story — one that sounds more like the plot of a horror movie than anything out of real life. Not only had the teen’s mother and boyfriend abandoned him and two of his siblings months earlier, but they’d also been left with the rotting corpse of their younger brother, who’d been dead for a year inside the apartment where they lived.
Although some neighbors were shocked by the discovery of the remains of 8-year-old Kendrick Lee, evidence has since emerged that the horrific abuse of these children had been documented for years.
The mind-boggling case began the afternoon of October 23, 2021, in southwest Houston.
When police arrived at the West Oaks apartment complex near Addicks Clodine and Westpark Tollway, they were met by the teenage caller.
Deputies quickly gained entry to the apartment he shared with two of his brothers, who were later confirmed to be 7 and 10 years old at the time. But once they stepped inside, it was clear that something was terribly wrong.
The children’s mother apparently had been gone for several months.
According to some reports, the mother, Gloria Williams, was living in a separate apartment with her boyfriend Brian Coulter. Williams, who has been charged with neglect following the grisly discovery of the remains of one of her six children, said that she checked on the children “every two weeks,” according to KHOU.
In her absence, the 15-year-old had been acting as the main caretaker for his two younger brothers and was able to feed them small amounts of food provided by kind neighbors. One neighbor within the complex told KTRK that the kids relied on the people around them to get by.
“The first time I saw him, he was sleeping on one of the slides,” Erica Chapman told the news outlet. “I noticed his mom, a few times, would come and park, and he would run down and grab like noodles, drinks, and chips, and run back up.”
But the mother hadn’t been seen at the complex in months, Chapman said, which is why she started giving the boys food to eat earlier this year.
But even with help from neighbors, it became tricky to provide the children with what they needed.
“He would not eat anything that you made,” Chapman said of the teen. “You would have to buy it — like it had to be a salad that was closed from the store or a pizza. Fruits still had to be in a bag.”
Another neighbor, who only started feeding the children about a week ago, confirmed this.
“He wouldn’t take cooked foods,” Trevor Thompson told KTRK. “He would take fruits and snacks.”
According to Thompson, who befriended the teen boy, his refusal of certain foods wasn’t because he was picky — it was because he had many paranoias, including being poisoned.
“A few times I noticed the lights weren’t on, and it was quiet upstairs, so I figured there was trouble because the parents haven’t been there in a while,” Thompson recalled, via KTRK.
“One day, he came here and knocked on the door and asked if he could use the charger, and we built a bond from there. I started offering him food because I knew he needed more than just a charger.”
Although Thompson and Chapman both suspected the teen’s family had fallen on hard times, they insist that they had no idea about what was really going on inside the home. In fact, until recently, they didn’t even know the teen was living with two other siblings.
“I asked, ‘Did you like the pizza?’ And he asked, ‘What? The first pizza we had?'” Thompson told KTRK. “That made me wonder why would he say, ‘We.'”
“After finding out what happened, I think he was more nervous and scared,” Chapman said of why the teen kept his brothers a secret. “‘Are they going to blame me for this? Are my parents going to punish me for this?’ Maybe his parents told him they would be separated if he told anyone.”
Chapman explained that she ultimately didn’t want to scare off the boy by prying and simply carried on giving him food instead of asking questions.
It may come as no surprise that all three boys showed signs of malnourishment when they were found.
But sadly, that wasn’t the worst of it.
According to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, who spoke briefly during a news conference, the scene inside the apartment was nothing short of “horrific.” During their investigation, police found the skeletal remains of a child, who was confirmed to be the children’s 9-year-old brother.