I’m Anti-Death Penalty with Exceptions

Recently I mentioned that a Boy Scout friend, who died in a plane crash, was the first friend I knew who died or was killed.  I just recollected that he wasn’t the first. 

In early April 1978, I received a call late at night from a college friend who said that Linda Meyers had been murdered.  My first wife and I had known Linda and her husband Jim Goldstone since we had started dating.  They went on to get married after graduation in 1970, and Jim became a physician. 

Linda was employed in Chicago as a Lamaze instructor.  As she was leaving her car near the hospital, she was approached by Hernando Williams and robbed at gunpoint.  He made her undress from the waist down.  He then forced her into his car and, it appears, took her to a shop owned by his father.  There he bound her hands and feet. 

He then forced her into the trunk of his car. With Linda in the trunk, Williams picked up his sister at work and drove her home.  He then drove Linda to a motel, forced her inside and raped her.

On the next day, with Linda bound and locked in the trunk of the car, Williams appeared at a suburban court where charges of aggravated kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery in an unrelated matter were pending against him.  The case was continued, and Williams then drove to visit a friend.  While he was there, people in the area heard cries for help coming from the trunk.  Someone called the police, but before they arrived, Williams drove away and  went to a bar where he visited other friends. 

Early that evening, he checked into another motel.  He forced Linda into the motel and again raped her.  Later, he forced her back into the trunk, picked up his niece at a friend's house and drove the niece home.  As he had done the day before, he drove his sister home from work and spent the evening visiting various bars with friends. 

Jim, after learning that his wife had not appeared for class that evening, notified the police of her absence.  Linda’s car was found by Northwestern University early the following morning.  Jim received a phone call from his wife in which she told him that she would be home soon.  He heard a voice in the background say, "Shut up bitch. Tell him you'll be home in about an hour."  Linda asked Jim if he had called the police, and he told her to tell the man whose voice he had heard that he had not informed the police. 

Officers investigating the cries for help were able to obtain the license number of the car, and learned that Williams had visited a friend.  The police searched the area for the auto without success, and periodically watched the Williams' home, but the car was not found. 

On April 1, at 6 a.m., Williams released Linda from the trunk of the auto.  He gave her $1.25 and instructed her to take a bus home and not to call the police.  He then drove off. 

Linda, ignoring his instructions, ran to the porch of a nearby house for help.  The person who came to the door refused her entry, but did call the police.  Williams, who had only driven around the block to see whether his instructions would be obeyed, returned and ordered Linda off the porch.  He then took her to an abandoned garage and killed her, shooting her in the chest and head.  There was medical evidence that Linda had been beaten once or more during her captivity. 

Williams was arrested at his home that afternoon, while washing the trunk of his car.  Early the next morning he gave a statement that was transcribed by a court reporter.  In the statement, the defendant admitted to kidnapping, robbing and shooting the victim. 

He pled guilty, hoping to avoid the death penalty, but a jury gave him death anyway.   

What followed was a drawn-out procedure in which he appealed his sentence to the Illinois Supreme Court, which denied the appeal in 1983.  A subsequent petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme resulted in a denial by a 7-2 vote with Justices Marshall and Brennan dissenting. 

Williams was finally executed in 1995. The Chicago Tribune ran a story in 2004 about Williams’ daughter, who was still searching for the “truth.”  Obviously, some people "just can’t handle the truth.” 

If the man, a firefighter, whose house Linda had run to had let her in, she would be alive.  But who in their right mind would have let a crazed, bloody victim into their home? 

I’m against the death penalty with exceptions, such as raping, torturing and murdering a friend of mine.