Williams gets four death sentences for kidnapping, rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland
COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — A Russell County Circuit Court judge sentenced a convicted child killer to four death sentences this morning in Phenix City.
Jeremy Williams murdered, raped and brutalized 5-year-old Kamarie Holland on December 13th, 2001.
Williams confessed to raping, sodomizing and killing Kamarie Holland. He pled guilty last month to the brutal crimes he captured on his cell phone video. Then he was convicted by a Russell County jury on Friday.
As he walked from the courtroom for the final time in the six-day trial, Williams was asked repeatedly why he did it.
He never answered the question.
Williams is on his way to Alabama’s death row. He was transported from Russell County to Holmon State Prison in Atmore hours after he was sentenced. His execution could be decades away.
As the judicial process grinds away, 55-year-old Russell County District Attorney Rick Chancey suspects it will take a while for the sentence that Circuit Court Judge David Johnson handed down Monday to be carried out.
“At its current pace, I’ll die before he does,” Chancey said. “My life expectancy right now is probably shorter than his.”
Before Johnson passed down sentence, several witnesses talked about the impact that brutal six-hour rape, sodomy and murder of Kamarie impacted them.
Williams’ ex-wife called him “soulless.”
“You are no longer worth my tears.”
A 23 year-old woman who was four when she was molested by Williams was the final witness.
She told the Judge.
“I feel so much that I can’t feel at all,” she said.
She then called Williams a monster.
Sgt. Jane Edenfield was one of two Columbus Police officers to find the body in the basement of abandoned Phenix City home. It turned a Georgia missing persons case into an Alabama murder. She was in the Alabama courtroom Monday with about a half dozen other CPD officers.
“Heartbreaking. Heartbreaking,” she said. “To hear the other victims and to know how much he’s done. And as one of them said, it took this long.”
The jury foreperson came back for the sentencing though she did not have to.
“This was a very difficult case to endure, and I am sure you saw all of the emotions on our faces. On behalf of all the jurors involved, we are proud of the young victims and witnesses that came forward to speak their difficult truth because we know that was excruciatingly painful. By coming forward, they all gave a voice to little Kamari. No child should have to endure what happened to her,” Stacy Mote, jury foreperson.
Taylor and Chancey have different theories on why the 39-year-old Williams did what he did to Kamarie.
“I think he told us why he did not,” Taylor said. “In his confession, he said that he once he did what he did to her and saw her reaction to and how upset she was. He knew that she was, in fact, lying. So, he killed her.”
Chancey said it goes back 20 years to another little girl Williams admitted to molesting.
“He’s not going to answer that question,” Chancey said. “But I know why I did it.”
Why?
“I started to ask the two last witnesses,” Chancey explained. “How does it feel knowing that this man was being driven by the memory of a 4-year-old. It happened nearly 20 years ago. And in his mind, a sick memory of how he felt about a 4-year-old 20 years ago has been in his mind and driving him for 20 years. That’s why he did it. He’s fantasizing about a child. But he’s not going to say that on the record.”
In addition to the four death sentences, Judge David Johnson sentenced Williams to life in prison for production of obscene material of a child; life in prison for human trafficking; 20 years for conspiracy of human trafficking; and 10 years for abuse of a corpse.
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