William Williams (murderer)

William Williams (1877 – 13 February 1906) was a British miner who was the last person executed by the state of Minnesota in the United States. In 1905, Williams murdered John Keller and Keller's mother in Saint Paul, and his botched execution led to significant support for the abolition of capital punishment in Minnesota in 1911.

Background

William Williams was born in 1877 and was an immigrant from Cornwall working as a miner in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In 1904, while hospitalized for diphtheria, Williams befriended John Keller, a local teenager who was recovering from the same disease, with whom he developed a long-term sexual relationship. Over the next two years they lived together in Saint Paul, and took two trips to the city of Winnipeg, Canada. Keller's father did not approve of their relationship and told his son that he was no longer permitted to travel with Williams, causing Keller to then return to his parents' home in Saint Paul.

In 1905, Williams sent Keller a number of letters expressing love for him and requesting that Keller join him in Winnipeg. However, these letters, at the insistence of Mr. and Mrs. Keller, went unanswered. Williams returned to Saint Paul in April 1905 and, in a fit of rage, shot and killed both Keller and Keller's mother in their home. Keller was killed instantly when he was shot in the back of the head while he was in bed, while his mother died from a gunshot wound a week later. Keller's father was not at home at the time of the shooting.

Trial

Williams was arrested and tried for premeditated murder, though he pleaded not guilty by reason of "emotional insanity." His defence was rejected and on 19 May 1905, he was convicted of murder. Williams was sentenced to death by hanging, and on 8 December 1905, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence. One judge dissented in the judgement, arguing that Williams's crime bore the signs of a crime of passion and therefore might have not been premeditated.

Execution

On 13 February 1906, Williams was to be executed in the basement of the Ramsey County Jail in Saint Paul. Unfortunately, the rope that was being used to hang Williams proved to be too long, and he hit the floor after dropping through the trap door of the gallows. Three police officers had to hold his body up by the rope for over 14 minutes, until Williams finally died of strangulation.

Williams's botched execution was used by opponents of the death penalty in Minnesota to argue that capital punishment should be abolished in the state. Minnesota eventually abolished the death penalty in 1911, and since then it has never been reinstated.

See also

• List of most recent executions by jurisdiction

Bibliography

• John D. Bessler (2003). Legacy of Violence: Lynch Mobs and Executions in Minnesota (St. Paul: University of Minnesota Press) ISBN 0-8166-3810-1
• "Botched hanging led state to halt executions", Star Tribune, 2008-02-12
• D. J. Tice (2001). "The Last Hangings: The Gottschalk and Williams Murder Cases, 1905", Minnesota's Twentieth Century: Stories of Extraordinary Everyday People (St. Paul: University of Minnesota Press) ISBN 0-8166-3429-7
• Walter N. Trenerry (1962). Murder in Minnesota: A Collection of True Cases (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press) ISBN 0-87351-180-8

External links

• John Bessler, "The Botched Hanging of William Williams", secretsofthecity.com, accessed 2009-02-03
• Execution of William Williams in MNopedia, the Minnesota Encyclopedia