Appalling news item in Texas.

A local sheriff announced on Tuesday evening that he had arrested a 35-year-old mother, accused of having abandoned her four children for several months, as well as her companion, suspected of the murder of one of the boys in 2020.

This Sunday, the three children had been discovered left to their own devices for months, in an apartment without electricity, with the corpse of their brother.

They were fed by neighbors.

The companion of the accused mother

He is the oldest of the three children, a 15-year-old teenager, who warned the police "that his 9-year-old brother had been dead a year ago and his body was in the room next to his".

The mother's companion, Brian Coulter, 31, has been charged with the murder of the boy who died in 2020 at the age of 8.

The mother, Gloria Y. Williams, has been charged with injury to a child by omission, lack of medical care and supervision.

“Horrible, tragic” situation

Ed Gonzalez, the Sheriff of Harris County, which encompasses the large Texas city of Houston, said on Twitter that further charges should be brought forward.

According to the sheriff, the parents had "probably not lived in the apartment for several months".

The situation is "horrible, tragic" for these three children who "lived in rather deplorable conditions", had added Ed Gonzalez during a press conference at the time of the discovery of the facts.

Undernutrition and physical injuries

The eldest "did his best to take care of others", his two little brothers aged 7 and 10, he had further clarified.

But the two youngest "appeared to be undernourished and showed signs of physical injury."

By May 2020, three of the children had stopped attending school.

A procedure for school absences had been initiated against the mother in 2019, then abandoned because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The three brothers are now in the care of child protection services.

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