HARRIS COUNTY, Texas  - Over the weekend, Texas authorities discovered a horrific scene in a Houston residence.

Three abandoned children were left to fend for themselves in an apartment with the body of their deceased nine-year-old sibling; officials say the nine-year-old may have been dead for up to a year.

According to local news outlet KTRK ABC 13, the skeletal remains of the deceased child and the three other youngsters, alive but malnourished, were found in a southwest Harris County apartment within the 3500 block of Green Crest Drive on Sunday. 

Deputies with the Harris County Sheriff's Office explained they were alerted to the situation when a 15-year-old called 911 and said his nine-year-old brother had been dead for a year in the apartment he shared with his siblings.

The teenager also told dispatchers that his parents had not lived in the apartment with them for several months.

When deputies arrived, they found exactly what the teenager described.

According to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, all three of the living children were boys, ages 15, 10, and 7, and they appeared to have been abandoned in the apartment.

Late Sunday night, the sheriff's office located the children's mother and her boyfriend, authorities say they began interviewing the two.  

The children were taken to a local hospital to be treated for malnourishment.

Sheriff Ed Gonzalez described the situation as "horrific" after he saw the conditions the children had been forced to endure. 

"I have been in this business a long time, and never saw anything like this," Gonzalez lamented.

KTRK reports that the deceased child's body, though beginning to decompose, was not hidden from view, but in plain sight within the apartment.

At this time, the three children are now in the county's custody.