Prosecutor Paints Man as Mastermind in Heist, 2 Slayings

A 48-year-old Los Angeles man masterminded a Fountain Valley computer store robbery that ended in murder, then plotted from jail to kill a key witness in the slaying, a prosecutor contended Wednesday.

The prosecutor described William Clinton Clark as a “very bright” man who went to elaborate lengths to avoid detection in the crimes, and allegedly recruited his girlfriend to carry out the execution-style shooting of 22-year-old Ardel Williams in 1994.

The Gardena woman had provided damaging testimony before the Orange County Grand Jury that helped lead to indictments against Clark and others.

“He had to take matters into his own hands,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Rick King told jurors as a double-murder trial began that could send Clark to California’s death row.

Clark also is charged with organizing the Oct. 18, 1991, robbery of a CompUSA computer store in Fountain Valley that ended in the death of Kathy Lee, a 49-year-old Garden Grove secretary who was shot in the head when she arrived to pick up her son from work.

Defense attorneys say Clark is innocent of both slayings, contending there is only speculative and fabricated testimony linking him to the crimes. Attorney Jack M. Earley will present the defense side of the case to jurors this morning in Orange County Superior Court.

Prosecutors say that others were the shooters in both slayings, but that Clark is equally responsible under the law for his roles in planning the crimes.

Clark met Ardel Williams at a computer training seminar in 1989, authorities said, and the two became friends and were involved in two thefts together.

She told police she had accompanied Clark to the Fountain Valley store about a month before the heist and that she was upset upon later learning that someone had been killed during the robbery.

“She decided to come forward,” King said. “It was a decision that cost her her life.”

The prosecutor alleged that Clark, while awaiting trial in the robbery, recruited his girlfriend, Antoinette Yancey, to befriend Williams and her family, using an assumed name.

Yancey, who is awaiting trial in connection with the Williams killing, allegedly lured the young woman to a Gardena industrial park on the promise of a job interview, and shot her in the back of the head as she filled out an employment application.

Two other men, including Clark’s younger brother and the convicted gunman, are serving life sentences without parole in connection with the Lee slaying.