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| Murder Suspect Kills Himself in Prison |
| By PlanetOut.com Network |
| Published: 11/25/2002 |
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Benjamin Matthew Williams, a convicted arsonist and the alleged killer of a gay couple, apparently committed suicide in his Shasta County, Calif., jail cell last weekend. Williams, 34, was found dead on the floor of his cell on Sunday morning when officers tried to wake him for breakfast. Law enforcement officials said severe cuts to his arms, legs and neck appeared to be self-inflicted with a razor blade found in his cell. It is unclear where Williams got the blade, since inmates at the jail are forbidden from having them. Along with his younger brother Tyler, Williams was arrested in 1999 for setting fire to three Sacramento-area synagogues and for fire-bombing an abortion clinic. Last year the brothers pleaded guilty to the crimes, with Benjamin Williams getting a sentence of 30 years. The two were awaiting trial for the murders of Winfield Mowder, 40, and Gary Matson, 50. Mowder and Matson were found shot to death in bed in their Happy Valley, Calif., home in June 1999. The trial, set for January 2003, will proceed for Tyler Williams. This year Benjamin Williams nearly killed a prison officer with a self-made hatchet during a failed attempt to escape custody. On Nov. 1 Williams had been found guilty of attempted murder in the escape, and was expected to get life imprisonment. The erratic Williams enjoyed the media attention surrounding his trials and often wrote letters full of anti-Semitic and homophobic diatribes to various media outlets. A Navy veteran, the conservative and religious Williams reportedly became more paranoid and violent over time. His former roommate, Todd Bethel, told the Redding Record Searchlight in 1999 that Williams went from 'normal evangelical Christian to paranoid conspiratorial charismatic.' The Williams' arson-and-hate crime spree spurred a legacy of change in the Sacramento area, with the formation of the Capital Unity Council, an interfaith group that is working to wipe out hate crimes and has plans for an anti-defamation center in California's capital. 'We would like to have seen justice choose the time, the place, the means,' Rabbi Brad Bloom told KCRA-TV in reaction to the apparent suicide. Bloom's synagogue was one of Williams' targets. 'He took the cowardly way out.' |
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