' A mother is accused of killing two of her young sons by placing them in a hot oven, police say - Lindsey Bever

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April 26th, 2024

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A mother is accused of killing two of her young sons by placing them in a hot oven, police say

Lindsey Bever

By Lindsey Bever The Washington Post

Published October 18, 2017

A mother is accused of killing two of her young sons by placing them in a hot oven, police say

A Georgia mother has been charged with murder after authorities say it appears she put two of her young sons in an oven and turned it on.

The mother, Lamora Williams, 24, is accused of killing 1-year-old Ja'Karter Penn and 2-year-old Ke-Yaunte Penn sometime between midnight Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Atlanta police said in a statement that the toddlers were found Friday night with burn marks on their bodies, although authorities are still awaiting autopsies to determine the cause of death.

"My daughter is a sick person if she did what I think she did," Williams's mother, Brenda Williams, told CBS affiliate WGCL earlier this week.

"Mora wasn't right, she hasn't been right and what happened three months ago, that the kids' father left her, I told him something tragic is going to happen. She's going to do something to those kids, she's going to do something to herself," she added.

When police responded to an injured person call at the apartment Friday night in southwest Atlanta, the officers found the two deceased children. A third child, 3-year-old Jameel Penn Jr., was not injured, according to the Associated Press.

Williams told officers she had left the children with a babysitter earlier in the day and had returned home to find the children dead, police said.

But investigators have been working to determine what happened and "do not believe the children's mother left them with a caregiver," police said in the statement to The Washington Post.


Williams's family told WGCL she has struggled with mental health issues and may have had postpartum depression at the time of the deaths.

The Associated Press reported that the children's father said Williams called him Friday night via video chat to tell him the children were dead and that he could see them lying on the floor.

The father, Jameel Penn, wrote on a GoFundMe page for the children that "I want everyone to use my story as a helping hand. I lost my 2 young boys to violence and I want to be a difference maker in someone else's life to prevent a child being hurt."

Williams, who is being held without bond at Fulton County Jail, was also charged with cruelty to children in the first degree, according to booking records. She waived her first appearance Monday, according to the Fulton County Sheriff's Office.

It was not immediately clear whether Williams has an attorney in the case.

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