Kenneth Williams was executed on Thursday, April 27th 2017 at Cummins Unit, Arkansas for the murder of Cecil Boren. In 1998, Williams abducted Dominique Hurd and her friend at gunpoint, then drove them to several ATMs to make cash withdrawals before shooting them both and leaving them to die. The friend survived, but Dominique died of her injuries, and Williams was sentenced to life in prison for her abduction and murder. In 1999, Williams escaped from Cummins unit and came upon the home of 57 year old Cecil Boren, who lived two miles away from the prison with his wife Genie, who was at church. Williams broke into the home and fatally shot Boren, stole his truck and several of his guns, then drove to Missouri, where he engaged in a high-speed chase with police. During the pursuit, Williams crashed the stolen truck into a water delivery truck driven by a 24 year old man who died of his injuries. Williams was sentenced to death for the murder of Cecil Boren in 2000, and has been sitting on death row at Cummins unit ever since.
Williams was one of eight men who were scheduled to be executed in Arkansas in the month of April. Governor Asa Hutchinson made the nearly unprecedented move to schedule the eight executions because the state’s supply of Midazolam, a controversial drug linked to several botched executions, was due to expire. Four of the eight men received stays of execution. Ledell Lee, Jack Jones and Marcel Williams were executed after delays while their requests were considered and ultimately denied by the Supreme Court.
Williams received Holy Communion for his last meal. When asked for his last words, he stated:
“You won’t even understand them because they will be spoken in my spiritual language, in “Tongues”. Tongues are made mention of in the Bible: 1 Corinthians Chapter 14. If it be my fate to die on an execution table shaped like a crucifixion cross, my last words here on earth will be spoken to God above while the ADC and the State of Arkansas work to put my body to death beneath.”
Williams’ time of death was recorded as 11:05pm (CST). He was the fourth man to be executed in Arkansas in 2017, and the tenth in the U.S.
You can read Williams’ submission to The Marshall Project {here.}
The incredible part of his execution’s story is that Michael Greenwood’s (the truck driver who was killed in the accident) family pleaded for his life to be spared. Greenwood’s wife was pregnant with twins the time of his death and they already had a daughter the same age of… William’s daughter, Jasmine. When Williams received his execution’s date the Greenwoods reached out to Jasmine and realized she had not seen her dad in 18 years, and Williams even had a granddaughter he never met. The Greenwoods bought Jasmine and her daughter plane tickets so they could have a final visit with Williams. As if it wasn’t amazing enough, they also drove from Missouri to Little Rock to pick them up at the airport and drove them all the way to the prison because "If I was Jasmine, I would want somebody there for me. We are all humans, we are all here together, we have to be here for each other,“ said Kayla Greenwood (Michael Greenwood’s daughter). They wanted to make sure Williams would be able to see his family one last time because they know how it feels to lose a father and "It’s just not right. It’s just not right. She didn’t do anything ever and now she is going to be a victim”.
Reblogging again because I forgot that my dear friend @voicefromdeathrow had such a great addition to it!
