Murder of Davontae Williams | |
|---|---|
 Davontae Williams in an undated photo | |
| Born | Davontae Marcel Williams June 13, 1995 |
| Died | July 26, 2004 (aged 9) Arlington, Texas, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Negligent homicide (malnutrition) |
Davontae Marcel Williams (June 13, 1995 – July 26, 2004) was a nine-year-old boy who, in 2004, died of malnutrition at his apartment in Arlington, Texas. He weighed 35 pounds at the time of his death. Davontae's mother, Marcella L. Williams, and his mother's partner, Lisa Ann Coleman, were arrested, accused of depriving Davontae of food, and charged with capital murder. Marcella Williams entered a guilty plea in exchange for a sentence of life imprisonment, while Coleman refused a plea deal, was found guilty, and received a death sentence.
To support the charges of capital murder against both women, prosecutors cited kidnapping as an aggravating circumstance. When Coleman appealed her death sentence, her attorneys argued that no kidnapping had occurred because Davontae had been in his own home and had been seen walking around his apartment complex days before he died. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected that argument, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intercede, and Coleman was executed in 2014. Coleman's attorneys said that she was targeted for the death penalty because she was a black lesbian.
Davontae's home had been investigated by Child Protective Services (CPS) several times before he died. Some of those investigations stemmed from accusations of neglect, and Davontae and his sister had been removed from the home for a year in 1999 because of physical abuse allegations against Coleman. Davontae's death was one of several child fatalities in Texas that placed CPS under scrutiny in the mid-2000s. These deaths spurred legislation that funded the onboarding of additional CPS personnel.