| Richard Williams was convicted of the contract murder of 48-year-old Jeanette Williams, who was in a wheelchair and is no relation. For $400, Richard Williams cut her throat and stabbed her repeatedly with an 8-inch steak knife and left her body in the middle of a southeast Houston street on March 24, 1997. The married couple who arranged the killing, Bruce and Michelle Gilmore, received life sentences. Williams, 33, is seeking to have his execution delayed on the grounds that he may be mentally retarded, a defense made possible last year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the mentally retarded is cruel and unusual punishment. A victims advocate called mental retardation the "brass ring" for death row defendants. At least seven Texas death row inmates have had their executions postponed on the grounds that they may be mentally retarded. The latest was Gregory Van Alstyne, who was scheduled to be executed last Tuesday. Several more appeals on the grounds of mental retardation are pending. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has not yet ruled on Williams' claim. "I'm trying to get off death row," Williams said. "I've got a life to live." A Harris County jury in 1997 convicted Williams of murdering 44-year-old Jeanette Williams, no relation. Richard Williams turned himself in after his brothers told him police were looking for him. He confessed to the contract killing, then pleaded not guilty at trial. In the confession, Williams said Bruce and Michelle Gilmore offered him $12,000 to kill Jeanette Williams, their friend. They wanted to collect on the $25,000 life insurance policy they had taken out on the woman. The Gilmores are serving life sentences for their role in the crime. A crack addict who had been paralyzed for two decades, Jeanette Williams had lived with the Gilmores on and off for about six years, even moving with them among Houston, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Richard Williams had been out of prison for less than a month when he met the trio. He had served 10 years for a crime spree that included two burglaries, arson and aggravated sexual assault, all committed when he was 17 years old. Williams was staying with his friend Jerrol Blueford when the Gilmores and Jeanette Williams came over for a visit, according to trial testimony. Bruce Gilmore took Richard Williams outside to solicit his help in the murder. Williams confessed to police that he agreed to the crime then. The three co-defendants hashed out the details and price over several subsequent conversations during a couple of drug-filled days, according to the confession and trial testimony. Jeanette Williams often sat in the next room as the other three discussed her murder. Williams said he and the victim even slept in the same bed one night. After his arrest, Williams calmly told police that he talked the Gilmores out of two of their plans for killing Jeanette Williams, including shooting her -- he said the gun would be too loud -- and taking her out of state for the murder. He worried they would be more readily connected with her if they traveled. "I said, `Look, Michelle, let me do my work. Have my money for me and that will be the end of it,' " Williams told police afterward. " `Once I take care of my business, if y'all ain't got my money, then it might be one of y'all being dead, because I don't play about my money.' " He said last week that he was "high and drunk" when he went to the police. Williams opted for killing the victim with a 9-inch steak knife supplied by the Gilmores. The four went on a crack-buying expedition in central Houston on March 24, 1997. Michelle Gilmore wheeled Jeanette Williams down the street in her wheelchair. Richard Williams grabbed the victim's forehead from behind, slit her throat and, after she fell from her wheelchair, stabbed her 13 times. During the killing, the Gilmores drove to Blueford's house. They told him that Williams was crazy, and that Williams had murdered Jeanette. They left $400 and told him not to tell Williams where they had gone. Williams walked back to Blueford's house and learned the Gilmores had cheated him out of most of the payment. "When they come back in Texas, I'm going to bury them," he told police. During his trial, Williams' attorneys raised the issue of his intelligence, calling several witnesses who said he should undergo neurological testing. But when the prosecutor asked Dee Dee Halpin, an educational diagnostician testifying for the defense, if Williams was mentally retarded, she said, "No." She testified that he scored a 93 on an IQ test when was 6. A bill before the Texas Legislature, which is trying to make the state's death penalty law agree with last year's Supreme Court decision, would classify defendants with an IQ of 70 or below as mentally retarded. Williams said last week he believes he is mentally retarded. His attorney, James Keegan, did not return calls seeking comment. Prosecutor Lynn Hardaway, who is handling Williams' appeal, disputed the claim, saying Williams has average to low-average intelligence. Noting the number of condemned men who have claimed mental retardation since the Supreme Court began considering the issue, Dianne Clements, president of the victims advocacy group Justice For All, said it has become a "brass ring" for those on death row. "He and his attorney will grab at whatever straw is available," she said. But Jim Marcus, executive director of Texas Defender Service, said the issue of whether Williams is mentally retarded needs to be examined and that the answer could shift more culpability to his co-defendants. "One of the traits of mentally retarded people is that they're very easily led ... or persuaded by others," Marcus said. "It could be that he's an extremely limited and vulnerable individual." But Williams acts tough, boasting that his gang might kill Blueford for testifying against him. "I am a gang member and a gang leader," he said, adding that he was in the West Side Crips and his street name is Panama. "This dude is in fear (for) his life every day." Later in the interview, Williams said he told the Crips not to kill Blueford so he would not be blamed for Blueford's death. "He might turn up dead in a few years," Williams said, "but I won't have anything to do with it." UPDATE: Richard Head Williams was contrite and took responsibility for his crimes in a final statement seconds before the lethal drugs began flowing into his arms. "I'd like to apologize for all the pain I've caused," he said. Looking at 3 brothers of his victim, "I'm sorry I caused what happened to your sister. I apologize." He expressed love to his family and while acknowledging he made mistakes said, "I was not a monster like they claimed I was. I made a mistake and this mistake cost - but they won't cost no more." However, in an interview earlier this month, Williams said he never saw or knew the victim, Jeanette Williams, 44, and that his criminal past earned him the trip to death row. "The way I look at it, the whole trial was rehearsed," he said then. "They used everything I did in my life against me. It had nothing to do with my case, but that's the way the system is designed, to get railroaded. I'm just a dumb black man with no money, caught in the system." Vanessa Velasquez, the Harris County district attorney who prosecuted Williams asked, "Then why did he give that confession? I had hoped he would reconcile with his own guilt. That's unfortunate. I think he was a cold-blooded killer. He slit a woman's throat who couldn't walk, was a paraplegic, from ear to ear, on a dark street," Velasquez said. "She fell out of the chair but that wasn't enough. He had to continue stabbing her. She was found laying in the road like a wounded dead animal, with her wheelchair thrown to the side." Williams contended, "I ain't did nothing to nobody," insisting he was in Louisiana at the time of the slaying, never received any money for the killing and "didn't know no Gilmores. The whole thing is a setup," he said, also blaming his earlier incarcerations for "being at the wrong place at the wrong time. There were cases I had nothing to do with, but I'm not a snitch," he said. "I wasn't going to rat on anyone." While in prison with a 10-year term for sexual assault, burglary and arson, records showed he had more than 100 disciplinary violations, including assaults and threats on corrections officers. He was discharged Feb. 28, 1997. Jeanette Williams was killed 24 days later. |
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