Williams sentenced to 60 years in prison

Sept. 30--FORT WORTH -- A Keller mother who talked herself out of an 18-year prison term in the killing of her husband was sentenced Tuesday afternoon to 60 years in the 2011 slaying.

Michele Williams, 45, showed no emotion as state District Judge George Gallagher read the Tarrant County jury's decision.

The jury of seven men and five women also sentenced Williams to 10 years for tampering with evidence involving the .45-caliber handgun that killed her husband.

The sentences will run concurrently, and she must serve half the sentence before she is eligible for parole, prosecutors said.

After she was sentenced, the mother of her husband, Greg Williams, read a victims' impact statement.

"Michele, Greg loved and trusted you with his life and business," Betty Middlebrooks said Tuesday afternoon. "And he was devoted to his family. Now he won't be able to see his daughters grow up."

Williams wiped away tears.

Keller police Capt. Brenda Slovak, who led the homicide investigation into Greg Williams' death, watched and heard the decision Tuesday from a separate courtroom from the one used in the Michele Williams trial.

"It's good," Slovak said after hearing of the sentence. "It's over."

Williams could have been sentenced to life in prison on the murder charge.

Almost a year ago, Tarrant County prosecutors offered Williams a plea agreement because of legal and technical issues with the investigation. She pleaded guilty to deadly conduct and tampering with evidence. Prosecutors had agreed to recommend and 18-year sentence.

But in interviews with the Star-Telegram and 48 Hours earlier this year, Williams said she was innocent and had accepted the plea to avoid the risk of a longer sentence at a trial and so she could be reunited sooner with her young daughter.

Days after those interview, state District Judge Scott Wisch threw out the plea deal, recused himself from the case and agreed to let her defense attorneys recuse themselves.

Greg Williams was shot in the head in the early hours of Oct. 13, 2011, as the couple's 4-year-old daughter slept on a couch.

The little girl is now in the care of a family friend, an official with the Tarrant County district attorney's office said Tuesday.

During the sentencing phase of the trial Tuesday morning, defense attorneys called no witnesses and Michele Williams also did not take the stand.

"I believe there's something left," defense attorney Cody Cofer said to jurors. "I urge you to follow your heart and arrive at a just verdict."

Prosecutor Jack Strickland asked the jury to start considering punishment at 40 years and go from there.

"She's earned every minute," Strickland said in his closing statement. "This is not a crime of passion. It's a cold-blooded execution in which this woman waited for her husband to fall asleep and shot him in the head."

One of the witnesses called by prosecutors on Tuesday morning was Williams' sister, Laura Cusick. When asked by Strickland about her younger sister's reputation in the community as far as being truthful and law-abiding, Cusick said, "It's bad."

Other testimony Tuesday morning was about how, after she was arrested, Michele Williams said she was pregnant in October 2013 and at high risk, which delayed hearings in the case.

Wisch took the stand Tuesday morning and said he had postponed hearings in 2013 because Michele Williams' attorneys told him that she was pregnant and documents were introduced that indicated she claimed to be pregnant.

Danny Nutt, an investigator for the Tarrant County district attorney's office testified, that he found no medical records indicating that Williams was pregnant with twin boys or that she had a miscarriage while she was in jail. Nutt said he checked at UT-Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth where ill inmates are taken for care.

"In phone calls to her then-boyfriend, she was crying and upset because she said she had lost the babies," Nutt testified Tuesday morning. The calls occurred on Jan. 30, while Williams was in jail.

"No records were found that she had a miscarriage."

A Tarrant County probation official also testified that she experienced many problems monitoring Williams after she was released from jail on bond in January 2012. Williams had to wear an ankle monitor. In December 2013, there were 20 days when no movements were recorded for 24 hours on the monitor, Lisa Hunt testified Tuesday.

A statement read to the jurors Tuesday from Michele Williams' former supervisor at a dental office indicated she was fired in 2006 because deposits turned up missing. No charges were filed.

Defense attorneys had maintained throughout the trial that Greg Williams had killed himself, while Michele Williams told authorities and family members several versions of what happened.

The Tarrant County medical examiner's office ruled that Greg Williams' death was a homicide, and that he died from a gunshot wound to his head.

Prosecutors told the jury at the beginning of the trial that Michele Williams killed her husband over money.

Documents introduced in the trial indicated that Michele Williams or her young daughter stood to benefit from a total of $800,000 in life insurance policies on Greg Williams, but the policies had suicide clauses in them.

Bank records also showed that Greg Williams brought in $850,000 in cash in 2011, but a bank account in October 2011 showed that the couple had only $1,000.

Domingo Ramirez Jr., 817-390-7763 Twitter: @mingoramirezjr

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