Posted on 02/24/2003 8:11:11 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Feb. 24, 2003, 9:16AM
 Christobal Perez / Chronicle Death row inmate Richard Head claims he is mentally retarded and therefore should not be executed for the 1997 slaying of a woman in a wheelchair. Prosecutors say Williams has low-average intelligence but is not retarded. |
On Tuesday, Williams is scheduled to die by injection, punishment for the brutal 1997 murder of a paralyzed woman.
Williams clearly relished the attention of a death row interview and the chance to tell his story: He did not do it. That cold, detailed confession -- on videotape -- was not him.
"They show a video of some dude sitting in a dark room," Williams said last week.
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 went to Blueford's house, where 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."
Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice
 |
Texas Department of Criminal Justice |
|
|
|
Name |
TDCJ Number |
Date of Birth |
|
Williams, Richard Head |
999251 |
7/19/69 |
|
Date Received |
Age (when Received) |
Education Level (Highest Grade Completed) |
|
1/7/98 |
28 |
10 years |
|
Date of Offense |
Age (at the time of Offense) |
County |
|
3/24/97 |
27 |
Harris |
|
Race |
Gender |
Hair Color |
|
Black |
Male |
Black |
|
Height |
Weight |
Eye Color |
|
6-0 |
208 |
Brown |
|
Native County |
Native State |
Prior Occupation |
|
Harris |
Texas |
Laborer |
|
Prior Prison Record |
||
|
TDCJ #456587, received 7/14/87, Harris County, 10 years, burglary of a building, burglary of a railroad car, arson and aggravated sexual assault, discharged 2/28/97. |
||
|
Summary of incident |
||
|
On March 24, 2001, Williams carried out a contract killing of a 44-year-old black female in Houston’s Third Ward. The victim was stabbed repeatedly in the chest and throat with an 8-inch steak knife and her body left in the middle of the street. Bruce and Michelle Gilmore reportedly paid Williams $400 to commit the murder. In all, Williams was to receive $12,000 from the two accomplices. |
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|
Co-defendants |
||
|
Bruce Allen Gilmore Michelle Raye Gilmore |
||
|
Race and Gender of Victim |
||
|
Black female |
||
|
Photograph of Offender |
||
|
|
||
Last Updated: August 31, 2001
Must be racism.
If he believes he is mentally retarded and used those words then he is obviously Not mentally retarded. Give him the needle
Richard Head Williams (a.k.a. "Dick Head") is appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court for the second time in 2003. The mentally retarded Texan was the plaintiff in a separate affirmative action case last month, arguing that his rejection from the University of Michigan was the result of institutional racism at the school.
In that case, he argued that his 610 score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was the result of a "culturally biased" exam on which African-Americans and other minorities scored disproportionately low.
When asked yesterday about the apparent inconsistency in arguing one month that he should be admitted to the University of Michigan, and arguing the following month that he was mentally retarded, Mr. Williams seemed confused.
"I see no reason why someone who is mentally retarded should be refused admission to an institute of higher learning like the University of Michigan," he said.
In a public statement of their own, the University of Michigan agreed to extend their affirmative action policy to cover mentally retarded applicants as well.
"We do, however, reserve the right to reject applicants who are severely retarded," the statement said, "An African-American who is smart enough to carry out a contract killing would be an ideal candidate for the University of Michigan, but we can't have some retarded white guy like that 'Corky' character on that old television show darkening the doorways of this school."
/sarcasm off/
The guy's name is Dick Head Williams? His mother should've gone to work for Miss Cleo.
It's a shame JEANETTE Williams doesn't have a life to LIVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I feel quite confident he'll quit complaining after tomorrow night ...
"I've got a life to live."
And the shorter the better.
What a despicable asshole, masquerading as a human being.
If this guy gets off, I may be so inclined to go into prison just so I can have the thrill of strangling this particular POS with my bare hands.
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