Houston House of Horrors couple seen in a library before arrest

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Newly obtained video shows the couple in the Houston House of Horrors case casually walking into a library to read news articles about the discovery of the woman’s slain son two days prior, before they are arrested by police outside.

Brian Coulter, 31, is charged with felony murder for allegedly punching and kicking her autistic eight-year-old, Kendrick Lee, to death, and then leaving his body to rot in the Houston apartment alongside his starving brothers, ages 15, 10 and 7, for nearly a year. His bond stands at $1 million.

Gloria Williams, 35, Kendrick’s mother, has been charged with injury to a child by omission and tampering with evidence – a human corpse. A judge last week increased her bond to $1.5million after deeming the previous amount of $900,000 ‘insufficient.’ 

Kendrick’s decomposing remains were discovered inside a bare, insect-infested apartment at the CityParc II complex on October 24, after Williams’ eldest son called the authorities for help. 

Williams and Coulter were initially interviewed by the police and released.

Two days later, surveillance cameras at Judson W Robinson Westchase Neighborhood Library captured the couple entering the branch at 4.42pm. The video was obtained exclusively by ABC13 through a public records request.

Footage shows the pair, dressed in all black, walking up to a librarian and engaging her in a conversation. Williams is seen flashing a smile at her boyfriend. 

According to previous reporting, Williams and Coulter went to the library to look up news stories about their case involving Kendrick and his surviving brothers. 

The couple later are seen emerging from the library, with Williams holding a sheet of paper in her hand. 

As they approach their parked car, law enforcement officers surround them and taken them into custody. 

During Williams’ bond hearing last week, prosecutors revealed new information about the disturbing case, including that Williams was received payments from the government to help care for three of her children, including Kendrick, totaling $2,000 a month, reported KTRK.

According to prosecutors, she continued receiving the financial assistance even after Kendrick’s death in November 2020, which she had not reported to the authorities. 

The money that Williams was receiving allowed her to pay rent on two apartments, prosecutors said, including the one where she and Coulter had lived since March. 

A search of the couple’s apartment revealed that it was fully furnished, as opposed to the unit at the CityParc II complex 15 minutes away, where Williams’ sons lived beside the corpse of their brother, which was bare and crawling with cockroaches. 

The children alleged that they were locked in a bedroom room with Kendrick’s decomposing remains, even while Coulter and Williams still lived with them.

Williams allegedly had groceries delivered to the apartment once a month and paid rent on the apartment to prevent Kendrick’s body from being discovered. 

During a jailhouse interview with KHOU11 two weeks ago, Williams said she was ‘sorry’ but denied knowing that Kendrick was dead, even though according to a probable cause statement that was previously read in court, the mother allegedly admitted to investigators that she was aware the child had died, but she was afraid to report it to the police. 

Kendrick’s body was left to rot under a blue blanket in a bug-infested bedroom, in full view of his brothers, for nearly a year while Williams and Coulter moved to another apartment, leaving the children to fend for themselves, according to law enforcement.

When asked why she left her sons – one of whom was seriously injured after being allegedly punched in the face by Coulter – Williams replied: ‘I checked on them every two weeks.’

The children were rescued by sheriff’s deputies after Williams’ 15-year-old son called 911. All three boys were described as malnourished, having been forced to subsist for months on snacks supplied by their mother and food donations from concerned neighbors.   

Authorities alleged that Coulter punched and kicked Kendrick to death around Thanksgiving Day last year, and Williams refused to report him to the police, claiming she was afraid her children would be taken away and she would end up in jail. 

During Williams’ previous court appearance, a prosecutor read aloud a statement of probable cause, which revealed that three of the mother’s surviving children witnessed their brother’s fatal beating. 

The children claimed Coulter struck the eight-year-old with closed fists and kicked him in his face, feet, back, testicles and buttocks.

Williams’ 7-year-old son told deputies Coulter continued kicking Kendrick, who was lying on the floor and not moving, while staring at the younger brother who was in the room.

After Kendrick’s eyes turned black and he stopped blinking, Coulter covered him with a blue blanket, the prosecutor stated.

When Williams entered the bedroom to check on her son and saw that he was dead, she began crying and fighting with Coulter.

Her 15-year-old son told investigators he believed his mother would call the police on Coulter, but ‘she never did.’ She then moved out of the apartment, leaving her surviving children with their brother’s rotting corpse and without any adult supervision.

William’s 10-year-old son told investigators that when Williams came by the apartment at a later date and lifted the blanket off of Kendrick, she found that ‘his body, feet and teeth had turned into a skeleton,’ and that ‘his hair was off.’ His decomposing corpse was said to have been covered with cockroaches.

The 10-year-old also claimed that Coulter would beat him as well, hitting him on the face, stomach, buttocks and legs, and broke his jaw last month.

When police arrived at the apartment on October 24, they found the child with a swollen jaw. At the hospital the following day, the boy said that his mother ‘was aware of the injury but did not seek or obtain medical aid for him,’ the prosecutor said. 

Authorities said that the 10-year-old will require surgery to treat his facial fracture.  

When questioned by detectives, Williams claimed that when she entered the bedroom around Thanksgiving 2020 and found Coulter beating her son Kendrick, she stopped the attack.

After discovering the next day that Kendrick had died, Williams claimed that she confronted her boyfriend, who ‘stated he was sorry, that he lost it and punched him, and continued punching him until he went to sleep.’

Williams allegedly told investigators that she knew her son was dead a year ago, but she did not go to the police because Coulter had told her not to, and also because she was afraid that her children would be taken away and she would go to jail.’

The children lived in deplorable conditions for months as they waited for their mother to call authorities to report that their brother had been beaten to death and left to rot. Investigators say the mother never made that call and the oldest surviving son, a 15-year-old, finally overcame his ‘absolute fear’ and called authorities on Sunday.