Richard Williams was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Jeanette Williams
According to court documents Jeanette Williams was wheelchair bound and lived with Bruce and Michelle Gillmore off and on. The Gillmore’s would take out a large insurance police on Jeanette making themselves the beneficiaries and would offer Richard Williams half of the money to kill her. Williams would slit the woman’s throat before stabbing her multiple times causing her death
Richard Williams would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Richard Williams would be executed by lethal injection on February 25 2003
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When Was Richard Williams Executed
Richard Williams was executed on February 25 2003
Richard Williams Case
Houston man sentenced to death for the contract killing of a paraplegic woman in 1997 was executed Tuesday evening at the Huntsville “Walls” Unit. Richard Head Williams, 28, expressed remorse for the murder of Jeannette Williams, no relation, during his final statement. “I would like to apologize for the pain I have caused all my families on both sides,” he said. Addressing Frank Abraham, Jeannette Williams’ brother, he said, “I am sorry, brother, for what happened to your sister and hope that you would forgive me one day.”
Williams had given a number of contradictory statements regarding his mental condition and role in the killing in the weeks preceeding his execution, and his contradictions continued right up to his execution. In a written statement, released after the execution, Williams was less than contrite. “I could have been that someone if I (had) been given a chance in life instead of denial or incarceration every time I was arrested for something the community believed I did,” he said. “To be here on Texas death row show (sic) all people that we people of American (sic) don’t care about helping. This about destroying lives to show they can kill.”
Jeannette Williams was 44 years old and addicted to crack cocaine when she was murdered on the night of March 24, 1997. Prosecutors say she was killed by Richard Williams as part of an insurance collection scheme masterminded by Bruce and Michelle Gilmore, a Houston couple who allowed the paralyzed woman to stay with them from time to time. Bruce Gilmore, who had taken out a $25,000 life insurance policy on Jeannette Williams and named himself as the sole beneficiary, asked Richard Williams to help kill the woman in exchange for $12,000. Williams attacked the woman during an alleged crack buy on a street corner of Houston’s Third Ward. Wielding a nine-inch kitchen knife, Richard Williams slit the woman’s throat, severing her jugular vein and windpipe, and stabbed her 13 times. Due to the violence of the attack, Houston police officers originally thought she had been hit by a truck when they found her body near her wheelchair.
Williams’ execution was the last to be carried out in Texas this month. Michael Dewayne Johnson, who was supposed to be executed tonight for the murder of a 27-year-old man in Lorena in 1995, received a stay Tuesday morning.
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