Kaufman County murders

In 2013, two prosecutors and a prosecutor's wife were murdered in Kaufman County, Texas. The case gained national attention in the United States due to speculation that the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang was responsible, but this was later found to be untrue. Eric Lyle Williams (born April 7, 1967), a former lawyer and justice of the peace whose theft case was prosecuted by two of the victims, was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death for two of the murders. He was also charged with the murder of prosecutor Mark Hasse, but a decision was made not to prosecute him as he had already received a death sentence for the other murders. His wife, Kimberly Irene "Kim" Williams, was tried separately, and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Timeline

Hasse murder

On January 31, 2013, Mark Hasse was shot and killed while walking in the 100 block of East Grove Street in Kaufman, Texas. Hasse was the chief assistant district attorney for the Kaufman County Criminal District Attorney's Office. He was walking from his car to the courthouse when a gunman shot him repeatedly and then fled the area in a waiting car. Hasse, 57, had been an attorney for many years, and had previously served as an assistant district attorney in Dallas County under District Attorney Henry Wade. He had worked for Kaufman County since 2010 as a prosecutor, and was also a licensed police officer commissioned with the district attorney's office.

A large manhunt was conducted by law-enforcement agencies, including the Kaufman Police Department, the Kaufman County Sheriff, several Kaufman County Constable's Offices, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the United States Marshals Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. During the course of the investigation, a number of leads were followed and news of the investigation captured headlines across the nation. Most hypotheses involved allegations that the Aryan Brotherhood, a Neo-Nazi prison gang, had been responsible for the murder; they were later found to be untrue. The speculation was made by other Kaufman defense attorneys acquainted with Hasse, who knew that Hasse “dealt with cases involving methamphetamine in the county involving gangs and white supremacist groups.”

McLelland murders

On March 30, 2013, the bodies of Kaufman County Criminal District Attorney Michael McLelland, 63, and his wife, Cynthia (Woodward) McLelland, 65, were found in their home located in Talty in rural Kaufman County. The murdered couple was discovered by Dallas police officer C.J. Tomlinson and his step-father Skeet Phillips who were both family friends of the McLellands. The duo entered the home to check on the couple after a family member was unable to contact them; Tomlinson's mother had called him after her phone calls to both McLellands, trying to arrange a time to drop off vegetables for a dinner Cynthia McLelland was preparing for the Phillips family, had gone unanswered. Tomlinson found the front door closed but unlocked — unusual in a situation in which McLelland had, like his colleagues, been particularly alert to personal safety since the Hasse murder — and noticed shell casings on the entryway floor as he carefully opened the door. Both victims had been shot and killed in what was described as a home invasion-type assault on their property.

McLelland had been elected to his office in 2010 and was widely viewed as an excellent replacement for the previous district attorney, who had been arrested for driving under the influence while in office. Mike McLelland was an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve for 23 years, and worked as a clinical psychologist before pursuing a legal career. Cynthia McLelland worked as a clinical psychologist for many years before becoming a psychiatric nurse at Terrell State Hospital.

One day after the McLelland murders, someone referring to himself as the killer, went online and contacted law enforcement through a web-based crime tip line. The person provided information that only the killer would have known, like the firearms and ammunition used to kill all three victims. The person demanded that a local judge resign before the end of the week, or he would start killing people again. One of the tip lines that this person wrote stated: “Your act of good faith will result in no other attacks this week… We will not be stopped”. The tipster was unable to be tracked by the police because he used an anonymous IP address, meaning that his identity was concealed on the internet.

Following the McLelland murders, numerous elected officials in the county were placed under protection by law-enforcement officers at home and at work. Security was visibly increased at the Kaufman County Courthouse.

Investigation

Mark Hasse

After Mark Hasse's murder, an anonymous tip was sent to the county’s Crime Stoppers. The tip said that two white males were seen talking in a bar about killing Hasse and taking the responsibility for the murder. Investigators therefore suspected that an Aryan Brotherhood, a Neo-Nazi prison gang, was responsible for the crime, because recently, there was a significant amount of threats from the gang uncovered after Kaufman County prosecutors were named in helping to indict 34 alleged members of the gang on racketeering charges. This theory gained traction about 7 weeks after the murder. Evan Ebel, a former inmate and a white supremacist, was announced as the primary suspect behind the murder. While Ebel was on the run, he shot a police officer in the face during a traffic stop. Ebel's life ended after he was fatally wounded during a shootout with police in Wise County, Texas, approximately 100 miles from Kaufman County. Investigators eventually ruled Evan Ebel as the suspect.

Michael and Cynthia McLelland

Initially, the investigation into the double murder was challenging for police, but they soon started suspecting that Michael and Cynthia’s murders had connection with the murder of Mark Hasse.

Shortly after the murders of Michael and Cynthia McLelland, someone referring to himself as the killer, reached out to law enforcement though web-based tip line and said that he will continue killing people until a local judge resign before the end of the week. The police were unable to trace the person because he was using anonymous IP address. Meanwhile, local, state, and federal agencies looked into people prosecuted by Hasse and McLelland and found a man named Eric Williams, a former police officer and a judge who was convicted one year ago of stealing computer monitors on camera.

Reportedly, Williams was upset by the outdated technology of his office, his petitions to update it were not accepted, so he decided to "take matters into his own hands" and steal multiple computer monitors from a county building. According to the father of Eric Williams, he was offered a resignation from his job but instead, he chose prosecution and was eventually found guilty. Michael, a district attorney, asked Williams to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in exchange for a lenient sentence, however Williams maintained his innocence and refused to acknowledge his mistake, angering Michael. Eventually, Eric Williams was charged with a felony by Michael, convicted and sentenced for his crime in a public trial. Because he was a felon, Williams was fired from his job as a judge leading to him seeking revenge against the Michael and Mark. He also wanted to take revenge on several other judges, including the judge who read his conviction and sentenced him.

Detectives would later visit Williams at his residence, where he denied knowing anything about the murders. During the conversation, the detectives found parts of AR-style rifles inside the residence. Since Williams was prohibited from owning firearms because he was a felon, it gave the police probable cause to search his home. The police downloaded all of his search history, revealing that he spied on Hasse and McLellands by running license plates connected to them and trying to get their pattern of life. The police would also find a handwritten note on a piece of paper. The note contained password to an account for an online crime tip line, specifically to the account who referred to himself as the killer and threatened to kill people a day after the murders of Michael and Cynthia McLelland. On April 12, 2013, the police arrested Williams and charged him with making terroristic threats.

On April 13, a friend of Williams, called the police and told them that he rented a storage unit on Williams behalf. The police conducted a search of the storage unit and found lots of firearms, police uniforms and a large amount of ammunition, including the type used during the murders. Texas Ranger, Rudy Flores, called the finding a "treasure trove of evidence". On that day, Williams was charged with Capital murder. His wife, Kim Williams, was summoned for interrogation and after 2 hours of questioning, confessed to being his getaway driver in all three homicides. She was later charged with capital murder on April 18, 2013.

Arrests and trial

On April 18, 2013, Eric Lyle Williams and his wife, Kim, were arrested for all three murders. Eric Williams, a former attorney and justice of the peace for Kaufman County, had been convicted of burglary and theft while in office and was the only person prosecuted by both McLelland and Hasse. Williams was out of jail on probation at the time of the murders.

The trial was moved out of Kaufman County as Williams' defense lawyers cited media coverage and its interference with a fair trial as reasons for change of venue. Kim Williams was held at the Kaufman County Law Enforcement Center on a $10 million bond. Williams' license to practice law, which had been suspended on October 10, 2012, was permanently revoked when he was disbarred on February 3, 2014.

Eric Williams was found guilty of capital murder at his trial in Rockwall County on December 4, 2014, by a jury of seven men and five women after 3 days of deliberations. The sentencing phase of the trial lasted two weeks, he was sentenced on December 17, 2014, to die by lethal injection. Kim Williams, after testifying against Eric in his trial, pled guilty to her role in planning and performing the murders on December 30, 2014. She was sentenced to 40 years in prison as part of her plea deal.

On January 16, 2015, lawyers of Eric Williams filed a motion for a new trial. The lawyers claimed that the judge was biased which prevented Williams from being tested for brain disorders before his conviction. On March 2, 2015 a judge denied the request for a new trial. The U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal from Williams on May 14, 2018. Williams filed a new appeal in August 2019. As of October 2021, Eric Lyle Williams is incarcerated in the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and is awaiting execution. Online TDCJ Inmate records show he was still there in early 2025. On January 7, 2024, lawyers of Williams called for a new trial after releasing a 169-page filing where they explained that that they did not have enough time to review the evidence and prepare for trial, which led to Williams being convicted. The filing also claimed that he was tried by a biased judge and that his trial was unfair. The request would later be denied by a judge David Godbey on February 15, 2024.

Media coverage

In March 2018, HarperCollins published a book on the cases written by veteran journalist Kathryn Casey, In Plain Sight: The Kaufman County Prosecutor Murders. The first journalist to go inside the prisons to interview Eric and Kim Williams, Casey conducted extensive interviews over a two-year period with both the convicted killers. During those sessions, Eric Williams denied any involvement in the killings and professed his innocence. In contrast, Kim Williams described in detail the events leading up to the murders and recounted the days of the killings. She claimed to regret her actions and acknowledged that she could have stopped her husband by contacting authorities before any of the victims died. Kim Williams filed for divorce while in prison, and it became final in January 2018.

External links

• Texas Courts: Indictment, Conviction, and Sentencing