THE KILLER JUDGE
MONSTERS OF DEATH ROW
ERIC Williams had the world at his feet.
He’d worked hard all his life and risen to become a prominent lawyer in Kaufman County, Texas, marrying loyal wife Kim along the way in 1996.
The neighbourhood viewed him as a loveable eccentric, someone often seen riding around on his two-wheeled Segway.
He was eventually handed the role of Justice of the Peace – the equivalent of a UK magistrate – presiding on cases in the lower levels of the state court system.
Revenge
But when he was exposed as a thief in 2012, his world began to crumble.
Disgraced, suspended from practicing law, jobless and his reputation in tatters, Williams seethed and sought revenge.
He amassed an arsenal of 30 guns, police tactical gear and a getaway car.
Then, over the course of two brutal months in 2013, he went after the state prosecutors who’d seen him convicted and ridiculed.
In the end, Williams – described as a “ruthless killing machine” – showed no emotion when he was handed a death sentence in December 2014.
His estranged wife, Kim, had turned police informant, blurting out the entire sorry affair in explosive courtroom testimony.
She said: “Eric was arrogant. He was thrilled. He acted like nothing happened.”
When he was apprehended, Williams had two more names on his hit list as he planned to become a serial lawyer slayer, righting the “wrong” of his downfall.
As prosecutor Bill Wirskye pointed out: “These three murders were the culmination, the peak in an arc of past violence and anti-social, psychopathic behaviour on the part of Eric Williams.
“You will get a glimpse inside and see what lies beneath this facade of normalcy. You will find a deep-seated rage.”
The rot had begun to set in during May 2011. Lori Freiman, who worked in IT at the Kaufman County court, returned to work one morning to find three of the department’s new Dell computers had mysteriously gone missing.
She checked CCTV footage and was flabbergasted to see Judge Williams, now 49, hot-footing it away with them. When police turned up at Williams’s home to question him, they saw one of the computers sitting on his office desk, while another was stashed underneath some clothes.
Cornered, Williams came out fighting, saying he’d only swiped the tech because he’d been forced to “scrounge” for every bit of office equipment since taking on the job 12 months earlier.
By September 2012, Williams had been disbarred and found guilty of burglary. He was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence.
An appeal was swiftly batted away by the courts as Williams desperately tried to claw back some dignity.
He told a probation officer at the time: “My life has taken a drastic turn.”
And soon, revenge was the only thing on his mind.
He then turned his attentions to the two men who’d seen him convicted – assistant district attorney Mark Hasse, 57, and 63-year-old district attorney Michael McLelland.
Wife Kim said: “He would talk really badly about them. He said he would like to kill them.”
Williams scoured the internet. He bought a crossbow and learned how to produce homemade napalm.
Gouge
Speaking of Williams’s plans to murder another lawyer, district court judge Glen Ashworth, Kim said: “He was going to wait until after the Super Bowl and go to Ashworth’s house.
“He said he was going to shoot him with an arrow and then gouge out his stomach before filling it with the homemade napalm”
It was Mark Hasse, however, who became Williams’s first victim.
He was walking to his car from the courthouse when a masked Williams approached, and shoved him.
Mark pleaded for his life, shouting, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” before Williams let rip with a volley of gunfire that left his victim on the pavement, in broad daylight, in a pool of his own blood.
Kim, the getaway driver, says her husband had been trying to recreate a scene from the 1993 western Tombstone, starring Kurt Russell, which features characters being targeted in the street.
She added: “His anger was my anger. He was excited. He was happy.
“It was a cold day and excitement was in the air.
“I couldn’t watch the murder, though. I hurt. I couldn’t watch him kill someone.
“I asked him if Mark
had said anything and he told me Mark said, ‘No, no – please, no’.”
Car repair shop worker Martin Cerda witnessed the murder. Speaking in court, he said: “I heard the victim say the words, ‘I’m sorry’. Then I saw the gunman shoot him.
“The deceased fell down then his attacker came up to him and fired again while he was on the ground.”
Struggling
Attorney Linda Bush was another to glimpse the slaying. She said: “He shoved him again and at that point in time the shooter put the gun to Mark’s neck and shot him.”
Harrowing patrol car footage shows policemen performing CPR on the victim, desperately trying to save his life while he’s heard struggling to breathe.
Tragically, he was declared dead at the hospital with gunshot wounds to his chest and head. Ironically, he had been carrying a gun of his own underneath his jacket. Such had been the ferocity and speed of Williams’s assault, Mark had not even had chance to reach for it.
Incredibly, despite the shooting happening in a highly public place during the morning rush hour, Williams somehow managed to flee unrecognised. He took refuge for an astonishing two months.
Police launched a nationwide manhunt, voicing fears that Mark had been killed by the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison gang whose members he’d helped to put behind bars.
Williams, meanwhile, was slowly becoming ever more unhinged as he started planning his next massacre.
Kim revealed: “He was happy. He was now ready to kill Mike McLelland.”
On March 30, Williams turned up at the home of Michael and his wife
Cynthia, a nurse at a local mental health facility, armed to the teeth with handguns and assault rifles. He was wearing a tactical vest, night vision goggles and a sheriff’s badge.
Kim, who waited outside the property, again as his getaway driver, explained: “He goes inside and I hear shots, a lot of shots.
“He didn’t tell me about Mike but he did tell me about Cynthia. He told me he had to shoot her an extra time because she was still moaning.”
Devastation
Dallas police officer Chris Tomlinson was one of the first on the scene after the alarm was raised.
He left the victims’ family members in tears after describing in court the scene of devastation he witnessed inside the home.
He said: “There was Cynthia, lying on the ground. She was in a pool of dried blood. There was nothing anyone could do at that point.”
Cynthia, a 65-year-old who loved quilting and who had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, was cut down with an AR-15 assault rifle.
During a later description of the gunshot wounds, jurors were shown pictures of how she’d suffered a shot to the top of her skull that travelled downwards and out of her chin.
She’d also sustained wounds to various other parts of her body, including her chest area and genitals.
Prosecutor Wirskye added: “Williams then stood over McLelland, pumping a torrent of lead into his body.
“He fired at least 20 rounds in under two minutes.”
After the massacre, Williams was still at large. And, while the police manhunt raged all around him, he started getting cocky.
In a gloating email to the U.S. equivalent of CrimeStoppers, he boasted: “Do we have your full attention now?”
In the message he took credit for the killings, revealing many details that only the perpetrator could know.
But his pomposity was also his undoing – detectives were able to trace the email back to his home address.
There they uncovered a “treasure trove of evidence” and a cache of weapons – including the rifle that had been used to kill the McLellands.
Williams was arrested on April 18, 2013. Which, according to Kim, was just in the nick of time – she later revealed how he’d been plotting the murders of County Court Judges Erleigh Norville Wiley and Glen Ashworth.
And when he was found guilty of the slayings, Judge Michael Keasler dished out the ultimate punishment.
He said: “In addition to the three murders he had committed and the two that he was planning at the time of his arrest, Eric Williams had a general history of making threats when he became angry or wanted to control others.
Guilty
“He threatened to kill other attorneys over perceived insults and injuries.
“Taking all this into account, I must conclude that any rational person would find beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a probability Williams would commit criminal acts of violence constituting a continuing threat to society.”
Kim Williams avoided a death sentence by pleading guilty to her role as her husband’s assistant and was given 40 years behind bars.