A Georgia mother of three who killed her two little sons “by placing them in an oven and turning it on” will spend the rest of her life in prison, an Atlanta judge ruled on Friday.
Lamora Williams, 24, was convicted on a variety of charges, including two counts of murder in the 2017 deaths of her sons, Ja’Karter Penn, 1, and Ke’Yaunte Penn, 2, who died about an hour apart.
The now-condemned woman dialed 911 that terrible day.
“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,” said Williams to the dispatcher. “I’m not sure what to do. “I just got home from work.”
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In February 2018, Williams was charged with four counts of felony murder, two counts of murder, two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of concealing another’s death, and one count of making a false statement.
She was later charged with two counts of first-degree cruelty to children, one count of second-degree cruelty to children, one additional count of aggravated assault, one count of obstruction of a law enforcement officer, and one count of battery causing substantial physical harm.
The defendant told police she left her three children with a caregiver from noon to 11:30 p.m. that day and returned home to discover two had died while the caregiver was away.
“Can you please help me?” She asked the dispatcher. “Like. Could you please tell me that I don’t want to be locked up because this isn’t my fault? I had just gotten home from work.
According to an arrest warrant issued by the Atlanta Police Department, Williams “knowingly and intentionally” killed the two toddlers between midnight on October 12, 2017, and 11 p.m. the next day “by placing them in an oven and turning it on.”
According to autopsy reports, the boys’ heads were trapped inside a tipped-over oven. The medical examiner disagreed with police reports that the children had been burned.
“These thermal changes appear to be entirely from dry heat and changes caused by prolonged exposure to heat,” the medical examiner reportedly wrote in both autopsies. “It would require an extensive amount of time to get to this degree.”
Williams maintained her innocence.
According to a courtroom report by Atlanta-based Fox affiliate WAGA, prosecutors stuck to the police department’s version of events, contradicting the defendant’s narrative in the minds of jurors.
The boys’ father called 911 around the same time. Williams hesitated to give the dispatcher her address on Howell Place in Oakland City’s West End neighborhood.
“I just received a call from my child’s mother that my … two of my… two dead babies; my sons are dead in an apartment,” Jameel Penn told the dispatcher. “She video-called me, and I saw it. “I truly believe they are dead.”
The distraught father described the video call to Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV.
“It was like a real horror movie,” he told me. “It was Friday the 13th.”
Williams was found guilty of 14 counts on Friday. She was quickly sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus an additional 35 years.
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