Police said the case "seemed too horrific to be real."
The child
whose skeletal remains were discovered in an apartment alongside his three abandoned brothers was killed by "homicidal violence with multiple blunt force injuries", a medical examiner has ruled.
Officers made the horrific discovery of three children, aged 15, 9 and 7, abandoned along with the remains of their brother at an apartment in Houston, Texas on Sunday.
The 15-year-old had been the one to alert police.
Harris County Sheriff
Ed Gonzalez said the boyfriend of the boys' mother, 31-year-old Brian Coulter, was arrested late Tuesday and has been charged with murder.
It has now
been revealed that the murdered child was 8 years old at the time of his death in 2020. The 15-year-old told police his brother had been dead for over a year and was in the room next to his.
The child is believed to have died at around Thanksgiving last year, Sgt. Dennis Wolford, the lead investigator with the sheriff's homicide unit, revealed during a press conference on Wednesday.
"It seems that [the other boys] were in there while the body was deteriorating," Gonzalez said, adding that the skeletal remains were "in plain view" and "weren't concealed in any way."
Gonzalez called the discovery a "gruesome child abandonment case" that "seemed too horrific to be real."
The apartment, he said, was in "deplorable condition," with a filthy carpet and no furniture, bedding or blankets. There were also roaches and flies present.
When asked why the boys didn't contact police sooner, Wolford said they had been in "absolute fear." According to Houston's KTRK-TV,
neighbours who fed the teen said they didn't contact authorities as they were unaware of "the magnitude of the situation," including the fact that he had been living with other children.
Wolford also revealed that the 9-year-old had an injury to his jaw that will require surgery. Authorities believe this to have been caused by Coulter a few weeks ago.
The boys' mother, 35-year-old Gloria Williams, was also arrested and faces charges of failure to provide medical care and adequate supervision as well as injury to a child by omission.
If you have been affected by any of the details of this article, you can contact Childline on 1800 66 66 66.
