WASHINGTON, Oct 27 — A mother accused of abandoning her four sons has been arrested in Texas along with her partner suspected of murdering one of the boys, a local sheriff said Tuesday.

Three of the children were found Sunday in a Houston apartment, where they had been living alongside the skeletal remains of their brother.

The mother’s partner, 31-year-old Brian Coulter, was charged with the 2020 murder of the boy, who was eight years old when he died.

The children’s mother, 35-year-old Gloria Williams, was charged with injury to a child by omission and tampering with evidence.

The oldest sibling, a 15-year-old, told police his brother had been dead for a year and that his body was in the room next to his. 

Texan police believe the parents had not lived in the apartment for several months, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on Twitter. 

The children had been getting food from neighbors.

The situation was "very horrific” and "very tragic” for the children, who were living in "deplorable” conditions when they were found, Gonzalez told a press conference.

He added that the oldest sibling had tried to take care of the other two younger children, age seven and 10.

But the two "appeared malnourished and showed signs of physical injury,” Gonzalez said on Twitter.

Three of the children stopped attending school in May 2020, but action taken against the mother over their absence was dropped because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The three surviving brothers are in the custody of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. — AFP