Hemando Williams

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On 29 March 1978, Hernando Williams, a young black man, kidnapped Linda Goldstone, a white woman, from the Northwestern Medical Center parking lot in Chicago, Illinois. Linda, the wife of a physician and mother of a young boy, was on her way to teach a Lamaze class when Williams approached her, gun in hand. He told her it was a robbery. She gave him her money, but Williams made her partially disrobe and get into the front seat of his car. Williams held Ms Golstone captive for more than two days.

At the time of his kidnapping of Ms Goldstone, Williams was out on bail for kidnapping and rape of another woman. He drove around with her in the trunk of his car for several days, even attending a court hearing in Maywood, Illinois, with her in his trunk. At the hearing, the assistant state's attorney told the judge he was not ready for trial and Hernando Williams left the courtroom a relatively free man. When he returned to the court parking lot, he saw some people who appeared to be talking to the trunk of his car. He told those people to get away, and left the scene (with Ms Goldstone still in the trunk). One of those who had talked to Goldstone while she was in the trunk at the Courthouse, reported the license plate number to the police. Police did not act on the tip.

William spent two nights in different motels with Ms Goldstone and later admitted that he sexually assaulted her. About 5:00 in the morning of April 1st, Williams let Goldstone go, go—telling her to get on the bus and go home. Instead, she approached a home; knocked on the door and asked for help. The door was opened by a Chicago firefighter. She told him that she needed help. The firefighter told Ms Goldstone that he would call the police. Then, he closed the door leaving her outside.

Meanwhile, Williams had gotten nervous—would Goldstone keep her promise and get on the bus? He circled back around the block and saw her speaking to a man inside the house. After the firefighter closed the door, Williams got out of his car, and called to Linda. He led her around to a back alley. He shot her twice and left her in the alley. Some hours later, Chicago Police found Williams at his parents' home, washing out the trunk of his car.

A psychiatrist who examined Williams before trial reported that Williams suffered from "borderline personality disorder with episodic deterioration in reality testing and thought processes with episodic pychotic thinking."

At the urging of his attorneys, Hernando Williams pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping, robbery, rape and murder. The hope of the entire team was that Hernando would escape the death penalty. The strategy did not work. The state's attorneys prosecuting the case systematically removed all blacks from the jury. In January 1980, the all-white jury sentenced Hernando Williams to death. He was executed by lethal injection on 25 March 1995.