Grambling Student Admits Killing Mother on Spring Break

By Tiffany Leonard
Black College Wire

A 22-year-old Camden, N.J., man has admitted killing his mother while home from Grambling State University on spring break, and the prosecutor has recommended that he be given 25 years in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 1.

Darnell A. Williams, who at the time of the killing was a junior at Grambling State University in Louisiana, majoring in English, pleaded guilty June 9 to charges that he shot and stabbed his mother, Antonia S. Williams, 45, after an argument in her apartment.

In the course of the investigation, Williams also pleaded guilty to sexual assault of an 8-year-old male in Camden on May 24, 2002. He is to receive a 10-year state prison sentence in that case, to be served concurrently with the other sentence, according to the prosecutor's office.

Grambling's director of admissions, Nora Taylor, said she had no knowledge of Williams� case but that �Grambling has no ties to what that young man did.� Grambling and Williams "cannot be associated,� she said.

Taylor said that Grambling tries to ensure the safety of students by asking about felony convictions on the admissions application.

However, Williams had not been convicted of a felony at the time he enrolled.

Williams is being charged with aggravated manslaughter.

Bill Shralow, a prosecutor in the Camden County prosecutor's office, said in a news release that Williams admitted his guilt to Superior Court Judge Robert G. Millenky.

Williams' mother had been shot, stabbed multiple times, and severely beaten, according to Capt. Michael Kantner, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office.

Residents in a neighboring apartment heard two "pops" that night that they believed to be gunshots, authorities said in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Kantner said the incident took place April 3, 2003, and that concerned relatives discovered Antonia Williams' decomposed body April 7 in her first-floor apartment. The Inquirer reported that the relatives became alarmed after Antonia Williams failed to appear for a Friday appointment and did not appear in church that Sunday, according to a statement of probable cause.

Williams was arrested after an interview with authorities and has been in jail since then. He was last registered at Grambling in the spring of 2003.

�During the course of his interview, there were statements he made that indicated that he was involved in the murder of his mother,� Kantner said.

The arrest shocked some on Grambling's campus. �This story came to me as a complete surprise. We were putting the newspaper out when the police officer mentioned that she was looking for this student. She wanted to tell him that his mother was killed, but we had no idea that he would be responsible,� said Brian Henderson, who was a senior and editor of The Gramblinite at the time.

Dr. Geoffrey Rugege, chairman of the English Department, said that Williams "would have graduated," and called him "an average student."

Williams had been in a work-study program in the English Department for two years, earning $5.15 an hour for answering the telephone, picking up deliveries and the like. "The person I knew just can't be what they say," said Linda Mays, the department secretary to whom Williams reported.

"I'm just so disappointed. I have two boys. My heart goes out to him, to think he would do something like that. I literally had to get him to open up to get him to talk, he was so quiet."

Mays also said his mother would call often to check on his progress. He appeared in a play at school produced by the Department of Speech and Theatre, and he had "definite opinions" when they would discuss such topics as religion, she said.

Under a plea agreement, Assistant Prosecutor Mary Alison Albright plans to recommend a sentence of 25 years in New Jersey State Prison, and for 21 years and three months, he will not be eligible for parole.

Tiffany Leonard is a student at Hampton University.

Posted Sept. 25, 2004