Defendant in Wal-Mart Kidnap/Rape/Murder Pleads Guilty
cro...@earthlink.net
and all the disgusting things that happened to her? I would not.
Defendant pleads guilty in Tyler clerk's abduction and murder
TYLER, Texas - Prosecutors wanted the death penalty, but Sheri Dunlap wanted
to know about her daughter's final hours even more.
So before Johnny Lee Williams Jr. pleaded guilty Thursday to capital murder,
he told everything: The details of how he abducted Megan LeAnn Holden from a
Wal-Mart parking lot, shot her and then went to buy a cheeseburger a
half-hour after leaving the body on the side of a West Texas highway more
than 400 miles from her home.
Williams, 25, received consecutive life sentences on the capital murder
charge as well as two counts of aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping and
robbery. The former Marine had been scheduled to stand trial later this
month in the death of Holden, a Wal-Mart store clerk whose abduction was
captured in chilling detail on videotape after her night shift on Jan. 19.
"We had enough to convict him," said April Sikes, Smith County first
assistant criminal district attorney.
But seeking to avoid the death penalty, defense attorneys approached Smith
County prosecutors earlier this week with a plea offer. Sikes said Holden's
family was willing to accept the plea.
But first, they wanted Williams to debrief them on the last 24 hours of her
life.
For five hours Thursday, Hudson's mother, father and sister asked questions
and Williams answered. Sikes said they asked obvious questions and more
personal ones - like whether Hudson sucked on two of her fingers, as she was
known to do.
Williams told the family he randomly chose Holden because he thought he
could overpower her. He said he was supposed to spend that night at the
house of a nearby friend, but since the friend wasn't home, he walked to
Wal-Mart.
Sikes said Williams told the family he "didn't have a plan for how it was
going to end." He said Holden was cooperative and later "relieved" when he
told Holden he was bringing her back to Tyler and turned the pickup around.
But according to Sikes, Williams said Holden struck him in the face after he
made a U-turn to get gas. Williams said he then stopped the car, pushed
Holden through the passenger door and choked her before shooting her in the
head.
Williams told the family he stopped at a Whataburger for a bacon
cheeseburger 30 minutes after he shot her.
Sikes said Williams also admitted to raping Holden twice and apologized to
the family.
"This information was very important to them," Sikes said.
In a victim impact statement delivered in court after Williams was
sentenced, Dunlap told Williams he was the most selfish man she'd ever
encountered. She said she appreciated his apology but would never be able to
forgive him or forget what he had done.
"I want this to haunt you until you realize what you've done," she said
crying, the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported in its Friday editions.
Williams was arrested Jan. 21 at a hospital in Willcox, Ariz., while seeking
treatment for a gunshot wound. A clerk at an RV park near Bowie, Ariz., shot
Williams in the shoulder during a robbery attempt, authorities said.
The surveillance tape showed a man standing outside the Tyler store entrance
nearly two hours before Holden was abducted, smoking and walking into the
store a couple of times, police said.
Police said Williams, who was discharged last year after four years as a
Marine and serving in Iraq, was arrested in December in Tyler on a cocaine
possession charge. He was released the same day on $2,000 bond.
Dunlap and James Vincent Holden, Holden's father, have filed a lawsuit
against Wal-Mart and The Wackenhut Corp., which provided security to the
store.
___
Jeff
> Dunlap and James Vincent Holden, Holden's father, have filed a lawsuit
> against Wal-Mart and The Wackenhut Corp., which provided security to the
> store.
>
Its not Wal-Marts job to guarantee anyone's safety altrhough it is obviously
good business practice to maintain a safe shopping environment. They wont
win anything. Its amazing how these shyster lawyers jump on anything and
everything for money. Where I live, the local Wal-Mart is patrolled
constantly by local police and sherrif's, you cant go there anytime day or
night where you dont see 4 or 5 sherrif and police cars driving around (As
they do all the stores in our area), its considered one of the safest places
in our state to live, yet it didnt stop someone from carjacking a woman at 4
in the afternoon in the Wal-Mart parking lot with thousands of people
shopping and cops all over the place. If the scumbag criminals want to make
you a target, your going to become a target, cops, wackenhut or nothing.
