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Thread: Eric Lyle Williams - Texas Death Row

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    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    Eric Lyle Williams - Texas Death Row



    Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were gunned down in their Forney home over Easter weekend.



    Slain Kaufman County Assistant DA Mark Hasse



    Eric Lyle Williams


    Deputy Texas district attorney and wife found dead

    KAUFMAN, Texas (AP) - Two months after one of his assistant prosecutors was gunned down, a north Texas district attorney and his wife were found killed in their home, authorities said.

    The bodies of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found in their home Saturday, Kaufman County sheriff's Lt. Justin Lewis said. Authorities would not comment on a motive.

    "Everybody's a little on edge and a little shocked," Forney Mayor Darren Rozell told The Associated Press on Sunday. "It appears this was not a random act."

    Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was shot to death in a parking lot a block from his office on Jan. 31. No arrests have been made in his death.

    Lewis declined to say how the couple died or whether authorities believe their deaths are linked to Hasse's. Police, FBI agents, Texas Rangers and deputies were all part of the investigation.

    Rozell said what's so shocking is that the attack occurred at the district attorney's home, an unincorporated area just outside Forney, which has 15,000 residents within the city limits and about 40,000 in the area. Kaufman County is 33 miles southeast of Dallas.

    Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh told The Dallas Morning News that the McLellands had been shot in their home, and although investigators didn't know if their deaths were related to Hasse's killing, they couldn't discount it.

    "It was a shock with Mark Hasse, and now you can just imagine the double shock and until we know what happened, I really can't confirm that it's related but you always have to assume until it's proven otherwise," Aulbaugh told the newspaper.

    Sam Rosander, who lives in the same unincorporated area of Kaufman County as the McLellands, told the AP on Saturday that sheriff's deputies were parked in the district attorney's driveway for about a month after Hasse was killed.

    Aulbaugh said recently that the FBI was checking to see if Hasse's killing could be related to the March 19 killing of Colorado Department of Corrections head Tom Clements, who was gunned down after answering the doorbell at his home.

    Evan Spencer Ebel, a former Colorado inmate and white supremacist who authorities believe killed Clements and a pizza deliveryman two days earlier, was killed in a March 21 shootout with Texas deputies about 100 miles from Kaufman.

    Hasse was chief of the organized crime unit when he was an assistant prosecutor in Dallas County in the 1980s, and he handled similar cases in Kaufman County.

    "Anything anybody can think of, we're looking through," McLelland said after Hasse's death.

    McLelland graduated from the University of Texas before a 23-year career in the Army, according to the website for the district attorney's office. He later earned his law degree from the Texas Wesleyan School of Law.

    He and his wife have two daughters and three sons. One son is a police officer in Dallas.

    McLelland and his wife had moved into the home within the past few years ago, Rozell said.

    "Real friendly, became part of our community quickly," Rozell said. "They were a really pleasant happy couple."

    http://www.news10.com/story/21837145...ife-found-dead

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    Federal prosecutor withdraws from Aryan Brotherhood of Texas case

    A federal prosecutor has withdrawn from a sweeping racketeering case against a white supremacist gang for "security reasons," a defense attorney told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.

    Assistant U.S. Atty. Jay Hileman announced his withdrawal from a racketeering case involving the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas on Tuesday in an email to defense lawyers, Houston attorney Richard O. Ely II told The Times.

    Investigators have scrutinized the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas in recent days after two Kaufman County prosecutors were killed in attacks that followed their office's assistance in a major federal indictment against 34 alleged leaders and members of the gang in November.

    The gang had allegedly threatened to attack law enforcement officials connected to the racketeering case, though officials still have not named a suspect in the attacks against Kaufman County Assistant Dist. Atty. Mark Hasse and Dist. Atty. Mike McLelland, who was killed with his wife.

    U.S. Department of Justice officials in Washington and the U.S. Attorney's office in Houston had declined to confirm or deny Hileman's withdrawal Tuesday evening, saying only that the case "will continue to be worked by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas in partnership with the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division," according to a brief statement.

    On Wednesday, Tim S. Braley, an assistant U.S. attorney and deputy chief on a Justice Department drug and gangs task force, filed a notification that he would be joining the case as lead counsel with David Karpel, who had been previously working the case with Hileman.

    Hileman's apparent withdrawal came months after the gang allegedly threatened to kill public officials connected to the indictments.

    In the hours before news broke of Hileman's withdrawal -- first reported by the Dallas Morning News -- U.S. attorney's spokeswoman Angela Dodge declined an interview with the Los Angeles Times about the office's case against the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

    "I do apologize, but given the sensitive nature of the topic, we will not be providing any additional comments/statements or additional information at this time," Dodge told The Times in an email Wednesday.

    The November racketeering indictment tallied an extensive list of murder, attempted murder and assault charges against the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, regarded as one of the most violent white supremacist gangs in the United States.

    The gang often retaliates against its own members if they fail to carry out orders from the gang's strict, hierarchical leadership, according to court documents. The group has a written constitution that also mandates that members be killed if they cooperate with law enforcement.

    In December, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a confidential bulletin that the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas was plotting retaliation for the November indictments of its leadership.

    The bulletin said, in part, "High ranking members are involved in issuing orders to inflict ‘mass casualties or death’ to law enforcement officials who were involved in cases where Aryan Brotherhood of Texas are facing life sentences or the death penalty.”

    Defense attorney Ely told The Times he was "a little surprised" by Hileman's decision to withdraw, and that he couldn't think of a specific reason why the prosecutor would step away from the case.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/n...0,716207.story
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    Perry announces $100K reward to find killers in Kaufman case

    Gov. Rick Perry has announced a cash reward of up to $100,000 to help find the killers of a Dallas-area district attorney, his wife and an assistant prosecutor.

    Perry appeared Thursday in Kaufman to help bolster the investigation into the slayings of Kaufman County DA Mike McLelland, Cynthia McLelland and Mark Hasse. Nobody has been arrested.

    Perry’s announcement of the state offering $100,000 joins a similar reward offered by Kaufman County Crime Stoppers after Hasse was slain on Jan. 31.

    A service is scheduled Thursday afternoon at a church in suburban Dallas to remember the McLellands, who were found shot to death in their home last Saturday. Hasse was gunned down outside the county courthouse while arriving for work.

    http://www.khou.com/news/crime/Perry...201467261.html
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    Senior Member Member Jeffects's Avatar
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    So much for my affair/murder/suicide theory.

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    That was a long shot!
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    Co-founder sheds light on Texas' Aryan Brotherhood

    When the stunning news of the murders of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, found its way into the depths of the Texas prison system last month, it prompted cheers from many housed on part of the Polunsky Unit's solitary confinement wing.

    None of those participating in the twisted celebration appeared to take any credit for the slayings or have any special knowledge about the crime. They were simply taking some satisfaction in the ugly thought that a part of the vast criminal justice network — their blood adversary — had suffered a terrible blow.

    "Everybody was real happy."

    The account, provided to USA TODAY in a prison interview with John Murray, a co-founder of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood of Texas prison gang, is part of what investigators are encountering in a wide-ranging and frustrating effort to solve the McLelland slayings and the murder in January of the district attorney's assistant, Mark Hasse. The prosecutors' office, just outside of Dallas, had assisted federal authorities in bringing charges against 34 Aryan gang members in November.

    Murray, who claims to have disavowed his affiliation with the violent group, said he provided much of the same information to state investigators who, he said, questioned him within the past week about the murders.

    Law enforcement's interest in the Aryan group and a separate white supremacist gang eyed in connection with the murder on March 19 of Tom Clements, director of the Colorado prison system, has injected an especially chilling dimension to cases that have captured national attention and spawned exhausting manhunts across the region.

    Though Murray doubts that the Aryans would have authorized such a public strike and risked unwanted scrutiny, he said gang members were shaken by the indictment in November, which named some of the organization's most prominent leaders. The indictments charged members with a range of offenses, from racketeering to murder, kidnapping, assault and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Houston.

    In and out of prison, the gang numbers around 2,000 members, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has tracked the group.

    Murray said he provided investigators with the name of at least one former associate who talked about elevating the profile of the group before his release from prison two years ago.

    A COMMON DENOMINATOR

    Confined since 1979 after the attempted murder of a San Angelo, Texas, police officer, Murray, 57, said he was not aware of any discussions inside the prison about targeting the McLellands or Hasse before their murders.

    "I'm telling you what I told them," he said of his conversation with who he said were representatives of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Inspector General's Office.

    The inspector general's office did not respond to requests for comment.

    Murray's informant role was confirmed by a former law enforcement official with direct knowledge of his past cooperation. A second source, a prison official, said the inmate is among several people authorities are targeting for interviews as part of the Kaufman County inquiry. A third source, a federal law enforcement official, said investigators have been conducting interviews both inside and outside of prison walls in pursuit of information in a case that has shaken law enforcement well beyond the suburban Dallas community where the two prosecutors were murdered. The three sources are not authorized to comment publicly on the investigation.

    In the end, the federal law enforcement official said, authorities could conclude that the gang has no connection to the killings because it is only one facet of an investigation that the official has described as an "open field."

    After Clements' murder, believed to have been carried out by Evan Ebel, a former Colorado inmate with ties to a white supremacist group known as the 211 Crew, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper ordered an investigation into whether prison gangs were targeting other public officials.

    Though Ebel was killed in a shootout with Texas authorities days after Clements was shot to death when he answered his front door, Colorado authorities arrested another suspect — also with white supremacist ties — for questioning last week.

    Investigators have found no connection between the Texas and Colorado killings, but the proximity of the killings and the victims' law enforcement affiliations have required investigators to consider the worst: that the officials were specifically targeted.

    Hasse was gunned down Jan. 31 near the county courthouse. Mike and Cynthia McLelland were found shot to death in their home March 30. No arrests have been made in either case. A $200,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the conviction of the McLellands' killer.

    HINT OF 'RETALIATION'

    Hasse's murder was preceded by an ominous statewide bulletin issued in December by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The bulletin warned that authorities had received "credible information" that the Aryan Brotherhood was "actively planning retaliation against law enforcement officials" who helped secure the federal indictments announced in November.

    Murray said the federal case "initiated a new energy" within the group that might have been enough to push some extreme members to seek retaliation "if they felt like the 'family' had been threatened."

    Murray, described in federal court records as a "founder" of the gang, said he was drawn to its ideology out of a need to establish order in the chaotic and predatory prison system.

    Over the years, Murray said, he had become privy to orders to assault and or kill more than 30 inmates. Some efforts were successful; others were not. Claiming that he became increasingly disenchanted with the extreme prison violence in the early 1980s, Murray said he turned informant to help spare many of those targeted. In one unusual plot, Murray acknowledges rigging a radio to explode in the hands of another inmate. He said the attack, which Murray claims didn't seriously hurt anyone, was merely an attempt to "rehabilitate" the inmate for an attack on another.

    "It was a bloodbath," Murray said, describing the period.

    A former state official said Murray cooperated with authorities but disputed the extent of that cooperation.

    Articulate and eager to talk, the inmate has the requisite body ink to display his gang affiliation. He urges visitors to look closely at the Aryan Brotherhood tattoo on his left forearm. He said it also shows proof of his later renouncement of the group: The word "voided" has been inked over the gang emblem.

    His work as an informant, he said, has put him at risk. Murray said he has been "lucky" to survive, though much of his time is spent in solitary confinement near the state's heavily secure Death Row unit.

    COULD THEY HAVE DONE IT?

    These days, Murray has a special reason to discuss his claimed cooperation and his departure from the family he helped found.

    His 2011 parole application was denied, but a new request is under review, according to prison records. Sentenced to life for the attempted murder in 1979, Murray said he "didn't try to kill" the police officer. He fired at the patrol car, he said, out of anger because he believed his then-girlfriend had been "disrespected."

    Though he was convicted in an attack against a police officer, Murray said he doesn't think his former "family" would act as a group and take such a chance as to target a law enforcement official, let alone two prosecutors.

    "I have to say, most (Aryan members) are not very sharp people," he said, adding that many are consumed with the business of drug trafficking and exacting revenge against wayward members or rival groups. "Then again, any man trained in urban engagement" could probably carry out the assault like the one that claimed the McLellands.

    "If they did do that, especially killing the wife," he said, "then I pray to God that they get them."

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...rhood/2074789/
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    Wife of ex-official arrested in Texas DA killing

    North Texas authorities have arrested the wife of a former justice of the peace who was charged with making a terroristic threat in connection with the shooting deaths of a district attorney and his wife.

    Kim Lene Williams was arrested early Wednesday. Online jail records do not list charges against her and officials in Kaufman County wouldn't immediately comment on the reason for her arrest.

    A law enforcement official has said authorities are trying to build a case against her husband, Eric Lyle Williams, in the deaths of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, whose bodies were found at their home March 30.

    A probable cause affidavit says Eric Williams sent an email one day after the McLellands' bodies were discovered implying there would be another attack if authorities didn't respond to various demands. The email was sent from Eric Williams' personal computer. Authorities arrested him on Saturday and charged him with making a terroristic threat.

    He was being held on $3 million bond on that charge.

    Williams lost his elected position as justice of the peace after he was convicted of stealing three computer monitors from an office. McLelland and Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse - who was shot and killed in an apparent ambush outside a courthouse in January - prosecuted that case.

    During closing arguments, the prosecutors presented testimony indicating that Williams had made death threats against a former girlfriend and a local attorney.

    A jury found Williams guilty; he received two years' probation and lost his law license and position as justice of the peace.

    "The good old boy network is gone," McLelland said at the time.

    http://www.newson6.com/story/2200126...-texas-da-case
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    Sheriff says prosecutors will seek death penalty against Eric and Kim Williams

    Prosecutors will go before a Kaufman County district court on Friday, July 26 and formally announce they will be seeking the death penalty for Eric and Kim Williams, accused of three murders earlier this year.

    Kaufman County Sheriff David A. Byrnes gave that information to a crowd of Kaufman Lions Club members at the organization’s weekly meeting on Friday (July 19).

    Judge Michael Snipes of the Criminal District Court No. 7 of Dallas County will be in Kaufman to sit on that pre-trial proceeding, according to his court coordinator.

    Snipes was appointed as the presiding judge on the capital murder cases after 422nd Judicial District Judge B. Michael Chitty recused himself.

    “We’re going to try to seat a jury in Kaufman County,” Byrnes said, heading off questions about whether or not a trial would be held here. “We think we can do that.”

    “We think the people of Kaufman County deserve to hear this case.”

    Byrnes was the club’s guest speaker at its luncheon and was asked there to talk to members about the events that began in late January.

    “Jan. 31st, at 8:43 a.m., changed Kaufman forever,” Byrnes began. “Mark Hasse was assassinated on his way to work.”

    Hasse, a Kaufman County assistant district attorney, was shot and killed at the scene, one block from the courthouse.

    On March 30, the day before Easter Sunday, district attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia were shot and killed in their home.

    In subsequent weeks, former justice of the peace Eric Williams was jailed for sending a terroristic threat by email.

    Days later, during an interview with law enforcement, his wife Kim Williams confessed that she had been the driver of the vehicle that had carried her and her husband to both murder scenes and said her husband was the shooter in both cases.

    Both McLelland and Hasse were the prosecuting attorneys in the 2012 trial of Eric Williams that saw a jury hand down two guilty verdicts on state jail felony charges.

    Chitty was the presiding judge on that case.

    The result of that trial saw Eric Williams removed from office and have his license to practice law suspended by the State Bar of Texas.

    http://www.kaufmanherald.com/news/ar...a4bcf887a.html
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    Eric Williams faces death penalty in Kaufman County murder case

    The state will seek the death penalty against the disgraced Kaufman County justice of the peace accused of murdering the county's district attorney, his wife and a top prosecutor.

    Eric Williams and his wife Kim were indicted late last month on a pair of capital murder charges in the brazen killings of District Attorney Mike McLelland, his wife Cynthia and Assistant DA Mark Hasse. The state announced it would pursue the death penalty against Mr. Williams in a Friday morning hearing that lasted about five minutes in Kaufman County's south campus courtroom.

    Mrs. Williams, who has filed for divorce, also appeared in court and acknowledged the charges against her. The state has not determined whether it will seek the death penalty in her case. That decision will come next week.

    Dallas County Judge Michael Snipes, who was appointed to hear the case, tentatively set jury selection in Mr. Williams' trial for spring of 2014. The trial itself is scheduled to begin in October 2014. After the arrests, Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes called capital punishment a "viable option" should the district attorney decide to pursue it.

    County Judge Bruce Wood told News 8's David Schechter he wants the trial held in Kaufman. The defense will seek a change of venue, arguing that the Williamses will not be able to have a fair trial if it's held in the county.

    "I would find it hard to believe that a fair and impartial jury could not be empaneled," Wood said.

    The Williamses, both 46, have been in custody at the Kaufman County jail since their arrests in April. Eric Williams is jailed on $23 million bond while Kim is held on $10 million bond.

    Investigators say the couple planned the assassination style murders following the aggressive conviction of Eric Williams in 2012 for stealing county computer equipment from the IT department. After he was found guilty, Williams lost his law license and his job at the county. He testified it would be difficult to care for his wife without health benefits afforded by his job.

    On Jan. 31, Hasse was gunned down on his way into the Kaufman County Courthouse spurring a monthslong search for those responsible. Nearly two months to the day later, the McLellands were found shot dead inside their Forney home.

    According to affidavits unsealed after Mr. Williams was arrested, McLelland and Hasse both feared for their safety and began carrying guns after convicting Williams. Following Hasse’s murder, Judge Wood said that the district attorney expressed concern that Williams was behind the fatal shooting.

    Investigators also found weapons that fire similar caliber bullets to what was used in each murder at a storage locker Mr. Williams was seen using and at the couple's household. Williams is also accused of using the county’s Lexis/Nexis account to research driver’s license records and address information belonging to those he is accused of killing.

    The two were indicted on capital murder charges on June 27.

    http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/kaufm...217094421.html
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    Husband & Wife Accused Kaufman Killers Battling In Divorce Court

    There is a new twist in a divorce that may be a first for Texas. Court documents show Kim-Lene Williams, wife of former Kaufman County Justice of the Peace Eric Williams, has refiled a divorce case, this time naming her sister-in-law as a defendant.

    Kim-Lene and Eric Williams are both being held on capital murder charges for the January death of assistant Kaufman County District Attorney Mark Hasse and the March 30th murders of District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia. Those criminal cases are still pending. However, after their arrests, Kim-Lene filed for divorce.

    In the latest pleading, Kim-Lene Williams says the parties were married in 1996 “…and ceased to live together as husband and wife on or about April 12, 2013.” The petition says “(Eric Williams) is guilty of cruel treatment toward (Kim-Lene Williams) of a nature that renders further living together unsupportable.”

    But it is the introduction of Eric Williams’ sister, Tera E. Bellemare, as a third-party defendant that makes this suit different. The petition claims Kim-Lene owns property that is separate from her husband. It says “Bellemare is the sister of (Eric Williams) and is alleged to hold his power of attorney. Bellemare has converted the separate property of (Ms Williams) to her own use of possession and continues to convert said property on a monthly basis.”

    Kim-Lene also asserts “Bellemare refuses to account for any of her conversions.”

    She is asking a judge to award her $100,000.00

    http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/08/22/h...divorce-court/
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