The Texas mother whose three children were found living in deplorable conditions with the remains of their 8-year-old brother is now being held on $1.5 million bond, after a judge found her original bail “insufficient.”
Gloria Williams, 35, was also illegally receiving government benefits for young Kendrick Lee nearly a year after he was allegedly beaten to death by her boyfriend Brian Coulter, 31, prosecutors alleged at a Friday court hearing.
Williams faced a Houston judge in connection with the alleged abandonment of her three sons in the apartment where Lee’s body had been decaying since last Thanksgiving, prosecutors said.
The children, ages 7, 10 and 15, were left to fend for themselves for months in the squalid, unfurnished, vermin-infested home, while Williams and Coulter moved to nicer digs, authorities said.
Harris County prosecutor Andrea Beall told the court that Williams had pocketed about $2,000 a month in welfare for three of the kids, including Lee, over the past year, even after she allegedly moved out of the apartment in March and left the kids alone with their dead brother, according to Houston’s ABC13.
The prosecutor also alleged that Coulter punched the 10-year-old boy in the jaw and neither he nor Williams got the child medical care. The boy’s jaw became infected and needed surgery, Beall said.
District Judge Kelli Johnson raised Williams’ bond on two felony child injury charges from $350,000 to $1 million at the request of the prosecutor.
Johnson said Williams’ original total bond of $900,000 was “insufficient,” the local station reported. She is also charged with tampering with evidence.
Neal Davis III, her public defender, argued against the raise, calling it not “necessary” and “oppressive,” due to her inability to even pay a small fraction of the sum.
Davis told the court his client was “not really sophisticated,” and didn’t understand the severity of the charges.
Coulter, who allegedly beat Lee to death in front of two of his brothers, is charged with murder and also remains jailed.
Authorities finally rescued the boys when the oldest brother called police on Oct. 24.
Williams also has two daughters that were not living in the house of horror.
With Post wires