Stepdad killed 8-year-old, then mom left 3 kids to live alone with body, Texas cops say
A Texas woman was sentenced to prison for her role in the death of her 8-year-old son.
The 38-year-old pleaded guilty to injury to a child in October, according to court records. On Nov. 12, she was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
McClatchy News is not naming the woman or the victim to protect the children involved in the case.
In October 2021, a 15-year-old called 911 to report that their 8-year-old brother had been killed, according to KHOU.
“No matter who you are, if you’re a human being, the facts of this case would shake you to the core,” Edward A. Appelbaum, with the Harris County District Attorney’s Child Fatality Section, said in an April 15 news release. “It’s a horrific act.”
When police arrived at the Houston home, they found the boy’s skeletal remains, according to the release.
Officials said the boy lived in an apartment with his three siblings, mother and stepfather. Two siblings later testified that they saw their stepfather repeatedly beat the boy.
The boy died in 2020 after the stepfather severely beat him, officials said.
However, his remains were kept in the apartment, according to the release.
“(The boy’s) body, covered with a blue blanket, lay in the apartment for over a year while his siblings were forced to stay there as the body decomposed,” prosecutors said.
The boy’s mother and stepfather moved out of the apartment in March 2021, leaving the three siblings, ages 15, 10 and 7, to live there alone with their brother’s body until one of them called police in October, according to KTRK.
“The apartment was in a horrible condition. We saw soiled carpet, no furniture at all. No bedding, no blankets that we could see. We saw roaches and flies and very bad conditions for anyone to live in,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told KHOU.
The boy’s death was ruled “homicidal violence,” according to KTRK.
In April, the stepfather was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life without parole, according to the release.
In a jailhouse interview in 2021, the boy’s mother told KHOU that she “checked on them every two weeks” while the other three kids were living on their own.
This story was originally published November 13, 2024 at 7:05 AM with the headline "Stepdad killed 8-year-old, then mom left 3 kids to live alone with body, Texas cops say."
