Georgia mother sentenced to life for beating son to death over toilet use

An Atlanta-area woman is going to spend the rest of her life behind bars after she was found guilty of fatally beating her 4-year-old son because he wouldn’t use the toilet, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Sophia Williams, 43, was accused of savagely beating her son, Anthony Vice, and delaying medical care, resulting in his death.

The boy was admitted to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in early March 2022 after DeKalb County police responded to an apartment in Decatur, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area, for a report of a child who was not breathing.

Officers found Anthony on the living room floor without a pulse. Emergency personnel also noticed “new and old bruising over the child’s entire body,” prosecutors said.

An autopsy later determined that he died from blunt-force trauma to the head and that he likely would have survived if Williams had sought medical care when she first noticed signs of the injury.

During an investigation, Williams told detectives that the boy was not potty-trained. She also admitted to disciplining him by “striking him with her hand, a house slipper, a purse strap and a charging cord” whenever he urinated or defecated outside the toilet, or failed to obey her, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said in a news release.

A 13-year-old in the home told officers that Williams “whooped” Anthony on March 5, 2022, when he refused to use the bathroom. The boy became dizzy, fell, and was unresponsive, the teen told police.

Williams then placed him on her bed and threw water on him, briefly reviving him, though his only movements throughout the night were “reflexive, his arm jerking and his leg kicking,” prosecutors said.

She then allegedly fell asleep after doing a search on her phone for “remedy for concussion” and “coma symptoms and causes.”

According to investigators, Williams woke around 5 a.m. to Anthony “making a low grunting sound.” His body was “completely limp,” and he did not appear to be breathing, officials said. Williams called Anthony’s father at 5:38 a.m. and did not call 911 until 6:26 a.m.

Williams was convicted on Aug. 27, 2025, of two counts of felony murder, three counts of aggravated battery and four counts of first-degree cruelty to children. On Tuesday, she was sentenced to life without parole, plus an additional 10 years.

Despite her defense team’s attempt to seek leniency, arguing she was also a victim of domestic abuse, Judge Asha Jackson imposed the maximum sentence, calling the case the most gruesome crime she has seen in her 14 years on the bench, local ABC affiliate WSB reported.