Robert Williams was executed by the State of Nebraska for the murders of three women
According to court documents during a three day period Robert Williams would murder three women and attempted to murder a fourth. Williams would murder Catherine Brooks and Patricia McGarry in Nebraska and Virginia Rowe in Iowa. The fourth women was sexually assaulted and shot in Minnesota
Robert Williams would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Williams would be executed by way of the electric chair on December 2 1997
Robert Williams Photos
Robert Williams Case
In the late afternoon of August 11, 1977, the bodies of Patricia A. McGarry and Catherine M. Brooks were found in the McGarry apartment in Lincoln, Nebraska, after a search was instituted when neighbors found the 5-year-old daughter of Catherine Brooks wandering in the neighborhood looking for her mother.
The naked body of Catherine Brooks was found lying face down in the center of the living room floor. A pool of blood surrounded her head. There was a nonfatal bullet wound in her back and two bullet wounds behind her left ear. Later medical examination revealed spermatozoa in the vagina and in the rectal tract. The pathologist testified that the spermatozoa would have had to be deposited within an hour of her death.
The body of Patricia McGarry was lying in the dining room, face up, clad in a blue housecoat. She had also been shot three times, once under her right ear and twice in the neck. There was a bloody trail on the carpet from the living room into the dining room to the spot where Patricia’s body lay.
The police found an empty beer bottle with latent fingerprints on a chair. Later examination established the fingerprints as those of the defendant. The police also found a full box of .22 caliber long rifle shells on the coffee table in the living room and another unfired .22 caliber shell on the sofa. The casing of a .22 caliber shell was found on the floor of the living room. There was a bullet hole in the wall between the living and dining rooms, and a spent bullet was found in the entryway between the two rooms. Later investigation established that on August 10, 1977, at approximately 7:15 p. m., a model K-22 Smith & Wesson .22 caliber revolver and five boxes of .22 caliber long rifle shells were purchased by the defendant at a store in Lincoln.
Evidence at trial established that on August 11, 1977, at approximately 9:30 a. m., the defendant appeared at the apartment of another young woman in Lincoln, Nebraska. She had been acquainted with the defendant for approximately 6 months and he had been a babysitter for her 2-year-old daughter on occasion. The defendant told the woman that his car was broken down and asked to use her telephone. She admitted him and he then told her he needed to stay in her apartment for a while. She suggested that he stay in the storage room area of the apartment complex instead. The defendant then drew a revolver and demanded that she have sexual relations with him. She tried to lock herself in the bathroom but the defendant forced the door open and broke off the lock. He struck her in the chest and on the side of the head with the gun and threatened to blow her head off, and then raped her. The defendant remained in the apartment for several hours and raped the woman repeatedly.
At approximately 4 p. m., the defendant ordered the woman to bring her 2-year-old child and go to his car with him. As they approached the curb he told her she was free to go. She immediately went to a neighbor’s home and called the police.
The woman testified that during the time the defendant had been with her, he drank one beer and smoked a joint of marijuana but appeared normal and did not appear to be intoxicated. Other witnesses who had been with the defendant on August 10, and one as late as 1:30 a. m., on August 11, 1977, testified that on those occasions the defendant *22 appeared normal in speech and actions and did not appear to be intoxicated, although he had been drinking.
The evidence at trial established that defendant left the woman’s apartment in Lincoln about 4 p. m., August 11, 1977, and about an hour later was seen at a service station in Fremont, Nebraska, some 50 miles away, where he stopped and purchased gasoline. The station attendant testified that the defendant’s speech and coordination appeared to be normal, although he smelled alcohol on the defendant’s breath.
At approximately 10:15 p. m., on August 11, 1977, a deputy sheriff observed and checked the defendant’s car at a park and rest area in Cherokee County, Iowa, and checked it periodically thereafter through the night. At 6:15 a. m., the deputy had the car towed away. Upon examination of the car, the deputies discovered a packaging box for a Smith & Wesson K-22 revolver; a box of .22 caliber long rifle cartridges from which six cartridges had been removed; a bag of marijuana; and some gas cans with negroid hairs on them.
Shortly after 6 a. m., on August 12, 1977, Mrs. Jack Montgomery, who lived 1½ miles west of the park and rest area in which defendant’s car had been found, discovered that her car was missing from the garage. There was a blanket in the car and another blanket was also missing. She also found a checkbook with the name of the defendant imprinted on the checks lying in the driveway in front of the garage. At approximately 10 o’clock the same morning the Montgomery car was found abandoned in a ditch about 20 miles northeast of the Montgomery farm.
A little after 7 a. m., on the same morning, Elbert Bredvick was standing in his farmyard approximately 5 miles southwest of the point at which the Montgomery car had been abandoned. Bredvick observed the defendant approaching carrying two blankets draped over his shoulder. The defendant asked for directions to the nearest town. Bredvick gave the defendant directions which led defendant past the Wayne Rowe farmhouse one-half mile to the west, and the defendant departed in that direction.
On the morning of August 12, 1977, Mrs. Wayne Rowe left the farm home at 7:45 a. m., for an appointment at her hairdresser. Wayne Rowe left the house about 8:15 a. m., and returned shortly after noon, expecting his wife to be home. He observed that his wife’s car was gone and when he entered the house he saw his wife’s purse on the chair and the morning mail on the table. About that time an Iowa state trooper arrived and Rowe and the trooper went upstairs and found Mrs. Rowe’s naked body on the bed. There was a shotgun wound in her side and another in her back, and there was a wound in her neck from a .22 caliber bullet. Later examination established that she had also been sexually assaulted.
Negroid hairs were found in her hand and on the bedspread which compared favorably in diameter, coloration, pigment distribution, scale patterns, and medullation to samples taken from the defendant and the hairs found on the gas cans in his car. A .22 caliber bullet was found in the fibers of the bedspread which matched the bullets recovered from the bodies of Catherine Brooks and Patricia McGarry. A shotgun which had been kept in the Rowe home was missing and the telephone line had been cut.
In the bushes behind the Rowe garage officers found the blankets which were identified by Bredvick as the blankets that had been draped over the defendant’s shoulder earlier that morning. The Rowe car was found later in St. Paul, Minnesota. Inside the car was a live round of .22 caliber ammunition and a misfired cartridge with a firing pin impression which matched a casing found at the murder scene.
On August 13, 1977, at approximately 1:30 p. m., in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, the defendant confronted Walter Behun at gunpoint in the Behun yard and ordered Behun to drive him to St. Paul. They drove around for some time, ending at a railroad freight yard, where the defendant tied Behun up with belts and a sweat shirt, gagged him, and left him in a caboose. Behun *23 testified that the defendant did not appear to be intoxicated.
About 3 p. m., on August 13, 1977, a young woman was returning to her car in a parking lot in St. Paul, Minnesota. She opened the car door and placed her purchase on the floor. The defendant came up behind her and ordered her to get into the car or he would shoot her. Before she had time to do so, he shot her once in the arm and again later behind her left ear. The defendant pushed her into the car, demanded the keys, and drove to a remote country area where he raped her. After the assault, the defendant tied her hands and legs and drove off in her car. She managed to untie herself, got to a farmhouse and was taken to the hospital, where she ultimately recovered.
The evidence indicates that after August 13, 1977, the defendant went to Chicago, Illinois, and then back to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he was arrested in the railroad yards on the early morning of August 18, 1977.
https://law.justia.com/cases/nebraska/supreme-court/1979/42235-1.html
