The capital-murder trial that pitted brother against brother - both horrifically scarred in a childhood fire - ended with a life sentence for the younger man Thursday after his older brother invoked his right not to incriminate himself before the Pulaski County jury.
The 10 women and two men deliberated about 80 minutes on Thursday before delivering their guilty verdict against 24-year-old Antonio Williams of North Little Rock to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright.
The decision resulted in an automatic life sentence for Williams for participating in the December 2011 slaying of Kelvin Lott-Shelton, who was found shot dead behind the wheel of a crashed Jeep Cherokee at West 15th and Jones streets near Central High School’s football field. Prosecutors say the victim, accompanied by his girlfriend, had been lured into an ambush under the pretense of selling marijuana to Williams’ brother, Michael Williams, 25.
A .40-caliber bullet fire at Lott-Shelton’s back pierced his heart, killing him within a couple of minutes, according to medical testimony.
Antonio Williams, currently serving a 10-year sentence for robbery and burglary, did not testify during the two-day trial and declined the judge’s offer to address the court before sentencing.
A second defendant, Williams’ cousin, 23-year-old Christopher Ray Powell, is also charged with capital murder in the slaying, which prosecutors said was the result of an attempt to rob Lott-Shelton during a marijuana deal.
Defense attorney Bill James argued that Michael Williams was the guilty party, telling jurors that the prosecution’s key witness, Torrece Graydon, had originally told police that the elder Williams was the gunman who had accosted her and Lott-Shelton, her boyfriend. He accused the 25-year-old Graydon of changing her story to identify Antonio Williams as the gun-wielding robber to satisfy police who preferred him as a suspect.
Graydon had also been urged to identify one of the brothers by the victim’s sister, James said.
“The problem is their star witness has identified two people … and they’re both very burned,” James said in closing arguments. “Everything stems from Big Mike” Williams.
A big problem with Graydon, James said, was that she didn’t tell police that the man she saw was extensively disfigured. With Graydon’s claim that the gunman had put his face within inches of hers, James asked jurors how she could not have noticed his client’s condition, which has also discolored the man’s skin.
“Any person who sees this man - as tragic as his looks are - would lock onto this man,” James said.
There was no evidence that Antonio Williams and Lott-Shelton had ever met, James said, while Michael Williams had told police Lott-Shelton had been at his home the day he was killed. Michael Williams had also told police he had arranged drug sales, called “plays,” for Lott-Shelton before, the defense attorney said. Michael Williams also called Lott-Shelton about 30 minutes before he was killed, and Williams had told police that Lott-Shelton had said he was going to sell marijuana to Antonio Williams and two of his friends that night.
To buy defense claims of Antonio Williams’ innocence would require jurors to believe that Graydon and Akeya Shelton, the victim’s sister, didn’t care who was convicted for the murder of a man they both loved, deputy prosecutor Will Jones said.
“Why would [Graydon and Shelton] pick him … and leave the real killer out there running around?” Jones said.
To acquit, the jury would also have to buy into the theory that the defendant was being framed not only by those women, but also by his own family, who preferred to protect Michael Williams, Jones said, pointing out that the men’s sister, 26-year-old Sherice Williams, had been called by prosecutors.
“[Sherice Williams] was forced to tell the truth,” Jones said. “She didn’t want to.”
Graydon’s confusion about who she saw is easy to understand, Jones said. Her boyfriend told her they were meeting a scarred man named Big Mike so she just assumed the scarred man she saw with a gun was Big Mike, he said. But the man she described was Antonio Williams, he said.
Michael Williams had been charged in the slaying but the charge was dropped when Graydon recanted her identification of him as one of the robbers. Defense efforts to put the older Williams on the stand were thwarted when his attorney, Don Trimble, said his client would invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination if the judge forced Michael Williams to appear before the jury.
The judge said he couldn’t compel the man to testify, but as a substitute, the judge allowed the defense to play for jurors a 40-minute police interview with Michael Williams, although Williams told the judge that he had no recollection of talking to police.
On the recording, Williams told detectives that he had seen a drunk and crying Antonio Williams about five hours after Lott-Shelton was killed. Antonio Williams said that he had been forced at gunpoint to go along on the robbery with his cousins, and that it was Powell who had killed Lott-Shelton.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 8 on 04/22/2013