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Questions of crime reporting arise after toddlers' heartrending deaths

Many viewers are asking how something like this could happen and if there was more that could have been done to save these babies’ lives.

ATLANTA -- Police are processing new information in a horrific crime in Atlanta over the weekend that left two toddlers dead.

11Alive has gotten the 911 calls from the mother – the same woman now charged with their murders.

“Two of my kids are dead,” Lamora Williams said. “What do I – what do I got to do, they dead.”

She later follows saying that “she left them in the house by they-self. She left them in there.”

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Williams allegedly told police she left the children with a babysitter and that, when she returned hours later, the toddlers were dead. But police aren’t buying that.

Now, many viewers are asking how something like this could happen and if there was more that could have been done to save these babies’ lives.

As 11Alive investigated this story we found out that some people in the neighborhood claim they knew there had been a lot of issues in that house.

So that raises an important question: if people knew bad things were happening to those children, why didn't anyone speak up, say something or call the Division of Family and Children Services – or police?

Returning to the neighborhood where the two children died, 11Alive has learned that reporting crimes to police in the inner city can be complicated.

Roseanne Jones said it comes down to the “snitch factor.”

'Some people are worried about, if they call the police, what's going to be the retaliation to it," she said. "You know, a lot of people walk their kids back and forth to school, or they're walking going to places so, they don't know who they're calling the police or telling the police on."

At that point, it becomes a concern for their own family – and children.

“When the police do come here, it's like, 'Oh my God, me and my kids fear for our life because we don't know what this person may do to me and mines'," she said.

Several people said they were in constant fear of retaliation.

And while the fear may not justify not reporting crimes, it does bring about a legitimate reason why some people don’t.

11Alive has reached out to police and DFCS to see if there were previous calls made regarding Williams's home. We're still waiting the hear back.

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