8-year-old’s killer given death for 2 murders
An Oakland man was sentenced to death Wednesday for killing 8-year-old Alaysha Carradine in 2013 by spraying bullets into a sleepover party in the Dimond neighborhood and then gunning down a 22-year-old man during a robbery two months later in Berkeley.
Darnell Williams Jr., 25, was transferred to San Quentin State Prison after Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner handed down the sentence in an emotionally charged courtroom, where family members of the victims sobbed and screamed at Williams, “Why did you do it?”
“How dare you try to get life in prison without parole when you killed two people,” said Dolanda Moore, the mother of 22-year-old Anthony Medearis III, the second victim. “It’s like, yes, he’s on Death Row, but he’s still eating three meals a day. It baffles me.”
Horner denied defense motions for a new trial and an altered verdict, sentencing Williams to 172 years to life in prison in addition to the death sentence. As he read his decision, Williams sat quietly, staring straight ahead with his hand on his chin. His case will automatically be appealed to the California Supreme Court.
California has not executed an inmate since 2006, when a federal judge put a moratorium on the state’s lethal injections by finding that they caused undue harm that amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
Williams’ fate, like those of others sentenced to die, is tied to the outcome of the November election, when California voters will cast a ballot for two competing propositions, one to abolish the death penalty and the other to speed it up.
The sentencing capped off a case that horrified Oakland and focused attention on efforts to cut violent crime in the city. It began July 17, 2013, when Alaysha answered a doorbell at a sleepover and was shot in the neck by a gunman who hadn’t waited for the door to open before firing — and then continued to fire after it opened.
Williams was seeking revenge for the killing of his friend Jermaine Davis just hours before in Berkeley, said Deputy District Attorney John Brouhard. The defendant went to the house on Wilson Avenue believing he would find Antiown York, whom he blamed for Davis’ death.
The apartment belonged to York’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of his two children. Alaysha, called Ladybug by her family, was there playing with a group of children. A 4-year-old boy, his 7-year-old sister and their 64-year-old grandmother were wounded by the gunfire but survived.
Before the homicide could be solved, on Sept. 8, 2013, Williams attempted to rob Medearis and fatally shot the father of two young children as he ran away from a dice game in Berkeley, prosecutors said.
In statements read in court Wednesday, family members of Alaysha and Medearis described how the killings pierced their lives.
“I really don’t understand how one person can inflict so much pain on two different families,” said Jackie Winters, Medearis’ aunt, who became a fixture at Williams’ court hearings and called him a “cold-blooded killer.”
Shemeka Edwards, Medearis’ 30-year-old sister, excoriated Williams for, in her view, failing to show remorse.
“This man doesn’t have a soul,” she said, as her sobbing prompted others in the gallery to break into tears. “How dare he look at me or my mother in the eyes.”
Chiquita Carradine, Alaysha’s mother, couldn’t emotionally bear coming to court, said Brouhard, who read her statement to the judge.
“Our heart aches from the pain of not having her here with us,” the mother wrote. “She didn’t deserve any of this.”