Murder of Davontae Williams

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Davontae Marcel Williams (June 13, 1995 – July 26, 2004) was a nine-year-old boy who 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...

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