An Atlanta mother accused of killing two of her children by placing them in an oven chose not to appear before a judge on Friday morning.
According to Fox Atlanta, Lamora Williams’ final plea hearing was scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday at the Fulton County Superior Court. The state’s lawyers and Williams’ attorneys reached an agreement to schedule her trial for an unspecified future date.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Williams is facing murder charges in connection with the deaths of 1-year-old Ja’Karter Penn and 2-year-old Ke’Yaunte Penn. Police responded to Williams’ Atlanta apartment in 2017 for an injured person call, where they found the boys dead with stove burns.
According to the arrest warrant, Williams is accused of turning on the stove after she forced the toddlers into an oven.
Initially, Williams claimed that she left her boys with a caregiver. She told investigators that when she returned, she found her children deceased and the caregiver missing. According to Fulton County police spokesman John Chafee, authorities “do not believe the children’s mother left them with a caregiver.”
“The children’s mother advised she left the children with a caregiver around noon on [Friday] and returned around 11:30 p.m., finding the children deceased and the caregiver gone,” a 2017 Fulton County police statement read.
A 911 call made by Williams revealed that she feared going to jail and asked the dispatcher for reassurance, emphasizing she didn’t do anything.
“Can you please help me? Like. Can you please tell me, like, I don’t want to get locked up because this is not my fault? I had just came [sic] home from work,” she said.
“When I came in, the stove was laying on my son, on my youngest son’s head, and my other son was laid out on the floor with his brains laid out on the floor. I don’t know what to do. I just came home from work.”
Prosecutors argued that Williams put the children in the oven herself before video-chatting their father, Jameel Penn, and showing him the children lying deceased in the apartment. The father then contacted 911 as well.
Williams’ mother reportedly said that her daughter has a history of mental illness and may have snapped after her relationship with Penn ended.
Along with murder charges, Williams is facing lying to police, concealing a death, and child cruelty. She remains behind bars without bail.
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