Ex-judge's wife to plead guilty in Texas revenge plot
KAUFMAN COUNTY, Texas — The estranged wife and accused accomplice of former Justice of the Peace Eric Williams will plead guilty Tuesday to murder in connection to the 2013 assassinations of the Kaufman County district attorney, his wife and a top assistant, WFAA-TV has learned.
"A tentative plea agreement has been reached," said lead special prosecutor Bill Wirskye.
Kim Williams is scheduled to plead guilty at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Kaufman County before Dallas County State District Judge Michael Snipes. Her husband was sentenced to the death penalty on Dec. 17 in Rockwall County, where his case had been moved due to pretrial publicity.
Kim Williams is charged with three counts of capital murder. It is unclear whether she will plead guilty to all three of the indictments. It is also unknown what prison sentence she will receive. Kim Williams is being held in the Kaufman County jail in lieu of $10 million bail.
Eric Williams arrived on Death Row the day after being sentenced in the killings of Mark Hasse, an assistant district attorney, and District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, according to the Texas Department of Criminal justice website.
Prosecutors said Williams, 47, meticulously plotted revenge against the men because they prosecuted him for theft and burglary in 2012. Williams lost his job as justice of the peace — a judge who handles mostly administrative duties — and law license. Prosecutors say that conviction pushed Williams over the edge. During his trial, McLelland and Hasse presented evidence that he paid a friend to rent a storage unit where he kept more than 30 guns, police tactical gear and a getaway car.
Hasse, 57, was gunned down Jan. 31, 2013, as he walked to the Kaufman County Courthouse. District Attorney Mike McLlelland, 63, and his wife, Cynthia, were murdered in their Forney home during the Easter weekend in what prosecutors have described as a "torrent of lead."
In the punishment phase of her husband's trial, Kim Williams took the stand and gave a step-by-step account of how he developed his murderous plot and carried out the killings. She confessed that he was the triggerman and she was his willing helper.
She calmly and without emotion recounted to jurors how they celebrated the killings and how Eric Williams planned to kill two others, including his former boss, a retired state district judge, and the current Kaufman County District Attorney Erleigh Wiley.
She testified that at that time she had no plea deal with prosecutors and had simply decided to tell the truth in hopes of receiving some consideration in her own cases.
"Those families deserve this," she said. "They've suffered a terrible, terrible loss, and they deserve this."
Kim Williams told jurors what happened when her husband, then a newly elected justice of the peace, was convicted of stealing county computer monitors. She said he began drinking and became angrier and angrier. He soon began talking of killing those who had crossed him.
Kim Williams said he decided that he would kill Hasse first in a plot intended to cause shock and terror by its brazen, public nature. She said she drove the getaway car that her husband secretly purchased days before the killing. Kim Williams described how they parked and waited for Hasse to park in his "usual spot" near the county courthouse. Kim Williams testified that her husband dressed all in black and a Halloween mask, then got out and shot down Hasse.
Kim Williams testified that her husband soon began formulating his plan to kill Mike McLelland.— the other man that he blamed most for his downfall, she said. She said her husband decided that he would kill the district attorney in his Forney home on Easter weekend because he didn't think he'd have law enforcement protection. His plan was to impersonate a police officer, figuring that Cynthia McLelland would answer the door. He planned to tell her that there was a gunman in the area so he could enter the house, Kim Williams told jurors.
On the morning of the killings, Eric Williams donned his uniform — complete with helmet and a bulletproof vest with a sheriff's patch on the front. They drove to the McLellands' home and he went to the front door. Kim Williams then testified that she heard the gunshots.
Law officers would later recover 20 shell casings from the McLelland home. Mike McLelland had 16 gunshot wounds; Cynthia McLelland had eight.
"He told me that he had to shoot her an extra time because she was still moaning," Williams said said.
She told jurors that Cynthia McLelland had to die because she was a witness.
Kim and Eric Williams ate steaks to celebrate that evening. Then they drove to Lake Tawakoni that night to dump evidence, she said.
With her help, divers later recovered the Hasse murder weapon, a gun belonging to Kim Williams, and the mask used in the killing of Hasse.
Paul Johnson, Kim Williams' defense attorney, declined to comment on the details of the agreement, but said, "I'm hoping that we can get a resolution to this and put it behind us for the benefit of the community and the families of the victims."