Shortly before a a starving 15-year-old Houston boy called the police to report that he and his two younger brothers have been living with the rotting corpse of their nine-year-old sibling for a year, he texted his mother to tell her he could not take it anymore, it has now emerged.
The 911 call on Sunday led to a series of disturbing revelations, including that the three children, ages 15, 10 and 7, had been left to fend for themselves for several months, relying on food donations from unsuspecting neighbors to survive, while sharing an apartment with the decomposing remains of their sibling – even as their mother and her boyfriend lived just 15 minute away.
Detectives with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office questioned the couple before releasing them Monday pending the outcome of the criminal investigation. Child welfare services in Texas have also launched an investigation into the horror find at the apartment complex on Houston’s west side.
Erica Chapman, who lives at CityParc II at West Oaks Apartments, said she was among the people who had been feeding the malnourished 15-year-old, not knowing he was living with his two younger brothers.
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‘The first time I saw him, he was sleeping on one of the slides,’ Chapman told KTRK.
Chapman said she noticed that the teen’s mother was rarely home. She would occasionally show up bearing noodles, snacks and drinks. The abandoned teen would run downstairs to pick up the food and then return to the apartment.
About six months ago, Chapman said she started offering the 15-year-old food, but she said he refused to accept cooked meals, only agreeing to take packaged snacks, fruit and pizza.
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Trevor Thompson, another neighbour who had been helping out the boy, told the station the child was paranoid and feared getting poisoned.
Thompson said the teen knocked on his door one day, asking to borrow a charger. After that, the neighbour said he forged a bond with the boy and started offering him food.
Both Thompson and Chapman said they had no idea there were two younger children living with the 15-year-old.
Thompson recalled that on one occasion he asked the teen if he liked the pizza he had given him.
‘And he asked, “What? The first pizza we had?”‘ Thompson recounted. ‘That made me wonder why would he say, “We.”‘
Chapman speculated that the teen may have concealed the existence of his brothers because he was afraid of being blamed, punished by his mother or separated from his siblings.
The neighbours said they never called the authorities because they did not grasp the severity of the situation involving the teen, who was described as quiet and discreet.
‘I didn’t want to push him away by asking questions because I knew he was starving and needed food,’ Chapman said.
Alief Independent School District told KTRK that in 2019 and 2020, the school district filed truancy papers against the siblings’ mother because two of them were not attending school. The children were last enrolled in May 2020.
All three surviving siblings were taken to a hospital for treatment. They were said to be malnourished and injured, and the 7-year-old had broken bones in his face.
An autopsy is being conducted on the fourth child to determine a cause of death.
According to investigators, the 15-year-old said that the parents hadn’t been living at home for months, effectively abandoning the children to be on their own.
When police arrived to the home on Sunday afternoon, they found the brother’s skeletal remains out in the open, KPRC-TV reported.
The two younger boys appeared to be malnourished and ‘showed signs of physical injury,’ according to law enforcement officials.
‘It appears they were basically fending for each other,’ Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters.
‘The older sibling was doing the best he could to take care of the others.’
In an update late Sunday, Gonzalez revealed that the children’s mother and her boyfriend have been located and interviewed by homicide detectives.
On Monday, the sheriff announced that the couple was released without being arrested or charged with any crime. No explanation was provided for the decision to let the pair go at this time.
In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office wrote in an email to DailyMail.com: ‘This is an active investigation, with charges pending.’
Authorities have not said whether or not they were looking for the children’s biological father.
‘Connecting all the dots, it seems they were in there while the body was deteriorating,’ the sheriff said.
HCSO is now investigating to determine the circumstances that led to the death of the minor and how long the kids had been alone.
‘To ensure the safety of the children, the Department of Family and Protective Services is seeking emergency custody of the three boys,’ the agency said in a statement on Monday.
‘Child Protective Services does have history with the family, but there was no active CPS investigation at the time the children were discovered alone in their apartment.’
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