Gloria Williams, the woman who allegedly abandoned her three kids to live in an apartment with the corpse of their dead brother, saw her bail increased dramatically after it was revealed she continued to collect welfare for the children.
KTRK reported that a judge raised the bond amounts for Williams, 35, to more than $1.5 million. The bond on her aggravated assault to a child charge was raised to $1 million, with her other charges bringing the total up to $1.5 million. The outlet reported that’s a $900,000 increase over the original amount.
Earlier this week, the judge reportedly said Williams’ bond was “insufficient,” and prosecutors argued for it to be raised on Friday. Her defense attorney, Neal Davis III, said the increase “isn’t reasonable.
Williams and her boyfriend, 31-year-old Brian Coulter, were charged with various offenses related to the abandoned children. Coulter is charged with killing 8-year-old Kendrick Lee, while Williams is charged with helping him cover it up. Kendrick’s corpse was left in the apartment where three other children — aged 7, 10, and 15 — were abandoned. KTRK reported that Williams and Coulter also lived with Kendrick’s remains until March — about four months after the boy is alleged to have been killed — before the pair moved out and abandoned the other children.
The surviving children said they were locked in a room with the remains even when Williams and Coulter lived in the apartment.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, Williams claimed she checked on the children “every two weeks.”
CNN affiliate KHOU reported that Williams — who is currently behind bars for her involvement in the death of her 8-year-old-son, Kendrick Lee — told the outlet she “didn’t do it.” Williams claimed she didn’t even know the child was dead. Court documents, however, suggest Williams “altered, destroyed and concealed Kendrick’s body to get rid of evidence,” according to KHOU.
The outlet asked Williams why she left the three kids — aged 7, 10, and 15 — alone, and she claimed she “checked on them every two weeks.”
Authorities say Coulter allegedly beat Kendrick to death and that Williams allegedly helped in a cover-up. The two adults allegedly abandoned the children months before they were found.
Coulter was charged with felony murder, and the complaint accuses him of “unlawfully, intentionally and knowingly commit the felony offense of injury to a child by intentionally, knowingly and recklessly causing serious bodily injury to Kendrick Lee, hereafter styled the Complainant, a child younger than 15 years of age, by striking the Complaint with the Defendant’s hand, and by kicking the Complainant with the Defendant’s foot, and while in the course of and furtherance of the commission of said offense did commit an act clearly dangerous to human life, to-wit: striking the Complaint with the Defendant’s hand and kicking the Complainant with the Defendant’s foot, and did thereby cause the death of Kendrick Lee.”
The Daily Beast, which has dubbed the story a “house of horrors,” reported that Williams became “somebody else” when she met Coulter. Linda Smith, the grandmother of one of the surviving children abandoned in the apartment. Smith, whose son is the father of one of the kids, said she took in Williams and her kids for a few months in 2014. Smith said she eventually asked Williams to leave for “promiscuous behavior” but said that at the time Williams was a loving mother. She said that changed after Williams met her current boyfriend, Coulter.
“All of this happened after she met him,” Smith said. “When I saw her picture [on the news], she was like somebody else. I couldn’t imagine her ever being like that. I never saw her like that. She wasn’t like that when she was around me.”
In another development in the case, NBC News reported that Williams claimed she didn’t report Kendrick’s death because she was afraid, which also counters her claim that she didn’t know the child was dead, a fact negated several times since she made the claim.