Grim news out of Houston today.

[conuly]

I'm linking to it only so nobody asks "what happened" but if you don't know you probably don't want to, trust me. God, those poor kids.

Comments

[dine]

oh god, that is horrific

[elainegrey]

I cannot imagine the trauma.

[conuly]

I just hope those other kids don't blame themselves.

Or, rather, since that's obviously not gonna happen, I hope they get the help they need to live with it even though it's not their fault.

[dewline]

Aw HELL no...

[sabotabby]

Fuck, that is horrible.

[baranduin]

That's horrific. For the child who died and for the ones who lived.

[dark_phoenix54]

I can't believe that they let the mother go! Child endangerment, neglect, if nothing else, even if she had nothing to do with the death. CPS dropped the ball, too.

[lilysea]

Update just now: The children's mother, Gloria Williams, and her boyfriend, Brian Coulter, were arrested on Tuesday.

Mr Coulter, 31, has been charged with murder while Ms Williams, 35, was charged with felony injury to a child by omission, and tampering with evidence (human corpse), Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez announced on Tuesday.

Sheriff Gonzalez said more charges might be laid.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/mother-and-boyfriend-charged-over-death-of-8-year-old-in-texas/100574432

[adafrog]

WTF, man. Didn't read the article, just the title. People do shit.

[jessie_c]

I'm still wondering why their mother isn't in jail right now.

[lilysea]

Update just now: The children's mother, Gloria Williams, and her boyfriend, Brian Coulter, were arrested on Tuesday.

Mr Coulter, 31, has been charged with murder while Ms Williams, 35, was charged with felony injury to a child by omission, and tampering with evidence (human corpse), Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez announced on Tuesday.

Sheriff Gonzalez said more charges might be laid.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/mother-and-boyfriend-charged-over-death-of-8-year-old-in-texas/100574432

[lilysea]

I saw this via Australian news, and my first thought when I read the headline was

"Okay, it's in the US, the parent or parents probably died from COVID - maybe collapsing out in public -
and nobody realised that there were kids left alone at home"

eg tragic, and a sign of the hospital/school dropping the ball, but not malicious

or the parents died in a car accident, and nobody realised that there were kids left alone at home

But the fact that there were living parents definitely takes it to what the fuck.

[readerjane]

There’s also some responsibility for the landlord who received multiple complaints and never checked it out.

I was gonna say, patients bad enough to abandon those kids certainly wouldn’t be keeping up the rent, so why hadn’t eviction proceedings revealed the death? But with moratoriums on evictions, I suppose that’s why.

Those poor kids. So awful.