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Father accused of drowning 10-year-old worked for the state

According to the Georgia Department of Administrative Services, Leon Williams, the father who drowned his adopted 10-year-old son, has been suspended without pay from his job.

According to the Georgia Department of Administrative Services, Leon Williams, the father accused of drowning his adopted 10-year-old son, has been suspended without pay from his job.

Williams works as a training coordinator for classes that deal with purchasing. He transferred from the Department of Juvenile Justice after 13 months. He worked as an operations manager and had no experience dealing with children.

"We don't exactly know where the failure is right now," State Representative Erica Thomas said about the adoption process of foster children.

"We don't know, at this point, if there was a failure in the vetting process and if there was, was it because there wasn't enough money to put a case worker here or did they need enough resources to do something else here. I want to know if that was the case or did someone fail inside of the system. We don't know that yet but I do believe what you say is correct. We do need to look into that and see, where was the failure and if there was a failure here at point A or point B, how do we fix that and make sure that it doesn't happen ever again and that's very important."

"It saddens my heart," Thomas said about knowing Williams was a state worker.

Thomas held a press conference to address the death of Kentae Williams, the 10-year-old boy who was allegedly drowned by his adoptive father.

PHOTOS | Kentae Williams, 10-year-old who was drowned by adoptive father

Representative Thomas stated that she did not know Williams and that she is unsure of what exactly happened on the night the suspect drowned the victim.

"What we do know is that we have a suspect, and that suspect was the child's adoptive father," she said. "It hurts my heart even to say that a father could be a suspect in the case of killing his own son. And that is why we're here today, to speak out. Because these kids go through so much and they're taken into the foster care system because they are neglected. And to hear that this child was further neglected while being adopted is so sad. I too was a foster child and I went through about five different foster homes in one year. And oh the joy if I would have gotten adopted. But to hear today what has happened to this 10-year-old boy makes us very sad and very outraged."

Representative Thomas says she believes that DFACS works overtime to make sure these children are put into stable homes.

"And I am holding back tears right now because I am so sad," Thomas said. "I didn't know this 10-year-old boy, I didn't know him. But my heart is with his family because I am hurting right now, I know his friends at this elementary school are hurting and all of Georgia is hurting."

There has been a call to action to change the system and to develop more support for fostered and adoptive families.

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