Hernando Williams Executed For Linda Goldstone Murder

Hernando Williams was executed by the State of Illinois for the murder of Linda Goldstone

According to court documents Hernando Williams would kidnap Linda Goldstone from a parking lot and she was brought to a remote location where she was held captive for two days where she was repeatedly sexually assaulted. Williams would release her and not to call the police. Goldstone would go to a home where the owner would call the police however Williams would return and pull her back into the vehicle and killed her soon after

Hernando Williams was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Hernando Williams would be executed by lethal injection on March 25 1995

Table of Contents

Hernando Williams Case

According to testimony given at the sentencing hearings and at an earlier motion to suppress statements of the defendant, the victim, Mrs. Linda Goldstone, on March 30, *263 1978, was employed at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago as an instructor in the Lamaze method of childbirth. On that evening, as she was alighting from her car in the vicinity of the hospital, she was approached by the defendant and robbed at gunpoint. He made her undress from the waist down. He then forced her into his car and, it appears, took her to a shop owned by his father. There he bound her hands and feet.

Hernando Williams then forced her into the trunk of his car. With Mrs. Goldstone in the trunk, the defendant picked up his sister at work and drove her home. He then drove the victim to a motel, forced her inside and raped her.

On the next day, with Mrs. Goldstone bound and locked in the trunk of the car, the defendant Hernando Williams appeared at a suburban court where charges of aggravated kidnaping, rape, and armed robbery were pending against him. The case was continued, and the defendant then drove to visit a friend, Nettie Jones, at her apartment. While he was there, people of the area heard cries for help coming from the trunk of his auto. Someone notified the police of the incident. The defendant drove away from a crowd that had gathered and proceeded to a tavern where he visited other friends.

Early that evening, the defendant Hernando Williams checked into another motel. He forced Mrs. Goldstone into the motel and again raped her. Later, he forced her back into the trunk and picked up his niece at a friend’s house and drove the niece home. As he had done the day before, he drove his sister home from work and spent the evening visiting various taverns with friends.

In the meantime, police were searching for the defendant’s car. The victim’s husband, Dr. James Goldstone, a physician, after learning that his wife had not appeared for class that evening, notified the police of her absence. The victim’s car was found by Northwestern University security *264 officers. Early the following morning, Dr. Goldstone received a phone call from his wife in which she told him that she would be home soon. He heard a voice in the background say, “Shut up bitch, tell him you’ll be home in about an hour.” The victim asked Dr. Goldstone if he had called the police, and he told her to tell the man whose voice he had heard that he had not informed the police.

Officers investigating the incident at Jones’ apartment obtained the license number of the car and learned that the defendant had visited Jones. The police searched the area for the auto without success and periodically watched the defendant’s home, but the car was not located.

On April 1, at 6 a.m., the defendant released the victim from the trunk of the auto. He gave her $1.25 and instructed her to take a bus home and not to call the police. He then drove off. The victim, ignoring his instructions, ran to the porch of a nearby house for help. The person who came to the door refused to allow her to enter, but he did call the police. The defendant, who had only driven around the block to see whether his instructions would be obeyed, returned and ordered the victim off the porch. He then took her to an abandoned garage and killed her, shooting her in the chest and head. There was medical evidence that the victim had been beaten once or more during her captivity.

The defendant was arrested at his home that afternoon while he was washing the trunk of his car. Early the next morning he gave a statement that was transcribed by a court reporter. In the statement, the defendant admitted to kidnaping, robbing and shooting the victim.

https://law.justia.com/cases/illinois/supreme-court/1983/53240-6.html

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