Laron Williams

Laron Ronald Williams (October 5, 1948 – July 7, 1985) was an American serial killer. Originally convicted in the 1977 murder of a prostitute in Nashville, Tennessee and suspected in at least two similar killings, Williams later escaped from prison and murdered a police officer and a priest within days of one another in 1981.

Early life Much of Williams' early life is shrouded in mystery. Prison records showed his birthdate as October 5, 1948, and his birthplace as Louisiana. However, during an interview on death row, Williams said that he was born somewhere outside of the United States. He was the fifth oldest of four sisters and six brothers of a father serving in the United States Army. By 1981, prison records showed both his parents were dead. On October 18, he solicited the services of a 19-year-old sex worker, Terra Wedlaw, who had arrived in the city just two months earlier from Tampa, Florida. To avoid further incidents, he was temporarily transferred to a jail outside the county while authorities worked on gathering evidence to charge him with the three strangulations. After his conviction, Williams was sent to the Fort Pillow State Prison, before being transferred to the Memphis Correctional Center in 1980. He was initially placed in a work release program to train as an electrical apprentice but was soon removed due to his violent outbursts. In the ensuing scuffle, Williams managed to snatch the lieutenant's gun from his holster and shot him in the head, killing him on the spot. After Cox's body was found on the next day, state authorities made a priority to capture the dangerous fugitive. Three days later, he was finally captured by authorities at a restaurant next to a motel where he was staying.

Trial, imprisonment and death Following his arrest, Williams was separately charged with first-degree murder relating to the deaths of Cox and Jackson, each of which carried a possible death sentence. At the subsequent two trials, he was found guilty and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Johnson was executed for the 1980 triple murder which originally sent him to death row on December 2, 2009. Bobo had been on death row for the murder of a woman in 1983 and had also been linked to the murders of two men in 1982 and 1983. Bobo was later convicted of first degree murder for the murder of another fellow death row inmate, Thomas Lee Crouch, and received a life term, albeit his original death sentence was reduced to life in prison in 1995 after he was ruled to be intellectually disabled. Bobo was later sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed during a prison escape in 1998.