A Houston woman and her boyfriend were arrested and charged by authorities on Tuesday for abandoning and neglecting her three young children in a home for months at a time while the kids' nine-year-old brother's corpse decomposed in the house for more than a year.
Gloria Y. Williams, 35, has been charged with injury to a child by omission, failure to provide medical care and failure to provide adequate supervision, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
Brian W. Coulter, 31, is charged with murder in connection with the child's death, ABC 13 TV reported.
The two were questioned and released hours after investigators performed their welfare check on Sunday, during which they made the gruesome discovery.
The death of a nine-year-old boy whose skeletal remains were found over the weekend inside a Houston apartment also housing his three starving brothers has been ruled a homicide.
A Houston woman, Gloria Y. Williams (left), 35, and her boyfriend, Brian W. Coulter (right), 31, were arrested and charged by authorities on Tuesday for abandoning and neglecting her three young children in a home for months at a time while the kids' nine-year-old brother's corpse decomposed in the house for more than a year.
The arrests were made two days after law enforcement officials found Williams' three children abandoned inside a Houston apartment. Investigators also found a rotting corpse of Williams' nine-year-old son who had been dead for more than a year
Williams and Coulter allegedly left the children alone for months at a time while they lived in a different home
The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office on Tuesday ruled that the unnamed child suffered multiple blunt force injuries, resulting in his death by homicide.
It is unknown at this time whether the victim's mother or her boyfriend, who were interviewed and released yesterday, would face any charges in connection with the child's death.
A spokesperson for the Harris County Sheriff's Office wrote in an email to DailyMail.com: 'no charges have been filed by our investigators as of today. The findings of the Institute of Forensic Science along with our investigation results will be presented to a prosecutor when applicable.'
According to a report from the victim's 15-year-old brother, he and his two surviving siblings had been living with his decomposing body in their apartment for a year.
Shortly before the teen called 911 on Sunday, he texted his mother to tell her he could not take it anymore, it has emerged.
The call led to a series of disturbing revelations, including that the three children, ages 15, 10 and 7, had been left to fend for themselves for several months, relying on food donations from unsuspecting neighbors to survive, while sharing an apartment with the decomposing remains of their sibling - even as their mother and her boyfriend lived just 15 minute away.
Detectives with the Harris County Sheriff's Office questioned the couple before releasing them Monday pending the outcome of the criminal investigation. Child welfare services in Texas have also launched an investigation into the horror find at the apartment complex on Houston's west side.
Erica Chapman, who lives at CityParc II at West Oaks Apartments, said she was among the people who had been feeding the malnourished 15-year-old, not knowing he was living with his two younger brothers.
'The first time I saw him, he was sleeping on one of the slides,' Chapman told KTRK.
Harris County Sheriff's Department officers are seen above at a Houston apartment complex on Sunday afternoon where three children were found in a neglected state along with the decomposing body of their slain 9-year-old brother
The mother of the three children lived with her boyfriend just 15 minutes away from the apartment complex where her 9-year-old son was found dead
Investigators also found the decomposed body of a nine-year-old boy inside the apartment
Law enforcement officials said that the three children were given food by neighbors
Chapman said she noticed that the teen's mother was rarely home. She would occasionally show up bearing noodles, snacks and drinks. The abandoned teen would run downstairs to pick up the food and then return to the apartment.
About six months ago, Chapman said she started offering the 15-year-old food, but she said he refused to accept cooked meals, only agreeing to take packaged snacks, fruit and pizza.
Trevor Thompson, another neighbor who had been helping out the boy, told the station the child was paranoid and feared getting poisoned.
Thompson said the teen knocked on his door one day, asking
