Death Urged for Killer Who Grew Up in Wealth, But Led Gang

A Superior Court jury Monday recommended the death sentence for a Los Angeles man who grew up in wealth and privilege but wound up as a gang leader who bound and gagged two men and shot them to death.

George Brett Williams, 28, was convicted Monday of the 1990 slayings of two Los Angeles men who were to sell him several kilos of cocaine, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin McCormick said. Williams was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of robbery. He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 20 by Judge Madge Wakai in Compton.

The district attorney’s office sought the death penalty because Williams had been involved in violent incidents since he was a teen-ager, McCormick said.

“For the most part, you can look at the history (of a gang member) and figure out what happened, where things went wrong. Not this one,” McCormick said. “He came from a very wealthy family. He had a loving mother and father. He was given every opportunity.”

Williams’ attorney, Ronald Lemeiux, said he intends to file a motion for a new trial.

“I’m extremely disappointed,” Lemeiux said. “Even though he was convicted, I’m not convinced that he was the shooter. I’ve gotten to know him and his family and he just doesn’t fit the killer profile.”

Authorities said that in January, 1990, Williams and three other gang members planned to steal drugs from Jack Barron and Willie Thomas. According to McCormick, Williams and his partners cut up pages from a telephone book and wrapped them in paper bags that they were going to pass off as bundles of cash.

When Barron and Thomas demanded to count the cash before turning over the cocaine, they were led to an apartment in South-Central Los Angeles where Williams and his partners threw them to the floor, bound their hands and feet with shoestrings and stuffed socks into their mouths.

Witnesses testified that Williams’ gun accidentally went off, striking one of the victims in the chest. Saying that he did not want any witnesses, Williams shot both men point blank in the head, McCormick said. Williams and his partners robbed the dead men and stole their car.

Williams’ partners are serving life sentences for their roles in the shootings, the district attorney’s office said.

McCormick said that Williams was adopted as a baby by Charles and Jessie Maye Williams, the founders of the Williams Home for children with special needs. Williams was raised in the couple’s Athens Park mansion and attended private schools. At 16, he dropped out of school and began hanging out with gang members, McCormick said.

Williams left his parents’ home when he was 18 and moved into a nearby house owned by his mother, a real estate agent. McCormick said that Williams, a burly 6 feet, 3 inches tall, quickly ascended the ranks of the Rolling 60s, one of the city’s largest gangs. Williams became well-known on the street by the name “Nutty.”

“He was not at all a ‘classic’ gang member,” McCormick said. “He is an extremely articulate, intelligent and very manipulative young man, which may explain why he was able to rise in the hierarchy so quickly.”

McCormick said that Williams gained wealth and respect on the street as a drug and gun dealer who drove a flashy black BMW and was a “high roller” who stayed in Las Vegas hotels for free.

Over the years, McCormick said, Williams assaulted several people, supplied the guns used in the 1983 murders of a mother and her 16-year-old son, beat a woman and father, and shot at a police officer who was taking a burglary report. The officer was not wounded.

McCormick said that Williams initially denied any involvement and offered to testify against his friends, an offer he later recanted. During the trial, several witnesses came forward to report that Williams had offered them money to testify in his behalf. Other witnesses said they had been threatened.

After the jury returned its verdict, Williams’ wife, Monique, received permission from the judge to give her husband a new pair of tennis shoes. She was arrested after the bailiff found that the soles were lined with several balloons of heroin, McCormick said.