On a cool night in October 2011, Michele Williams and her husband, Greg, had an argument. Prosecutors claim the two were ready to close on a $450,000 home in North Texas, but she had spent the $91,000 down payment and he was mad.
He allegedly slapped her during the fight and then went to bed. She allegedly grabbed a .45-caliber handgun and shot him in the head.
Local media have dubbed Williams the “black widow,” a term typically used for cold-blooded, calculated, female killers who take out their mate — usually for money. On Tuesday, she sauntered into a Fort Worth courtroom wearing a black skirt, white blouse, black vest and little emotion for her first day of trial. Prosecutors claim she shot her husband dead for the insurance check and plotted to frame someone else for the crime. Her defense attorney maintains the man killed himself.
Advertisement
Williams, 45, is charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence, which is a second-degree felony in Texas.
Previous testimony is riddled with twists and turns. Initially, Williams told police a nighttime intruder took her husband’s life.
“Michele Williams tampered with the scene,” prosecutor Jack Strickland told jurors. “She repositioned his hands, cleaned them, takes the gun to a backdoor along with a shell casing and wrench. She got a screwdriver and made it look like someone used it to enter through the back door.”
Then she freshened her makeup, rehearsed her story and called police, Strickland said.
A search warrant affidavit indicated authorities suspected she may have sedated her husband and turned up the TV volume to smother the sound of the gunshot, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Records also show she researched how to stage a crime scene on the Internet.
Advertisement
Williams’s son, Andrew O’Brien, testified on Tuesday his mother asked him to help her frame Greg Williams’s ex-wife for the murder.
Share this articleShare“She wanted me to contact friends to buy a sweater and fire a gun into it, and then leave it with her [the ex-wife],” he said. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t call police at that time because I wasn’t sure what to do and it was my mother.”
Strickland told The Washington Post that when the evidence began to contradict her intruder story, she told police her husband killed himself.
Williams’s defense attorney, Clay Graham, told jurors she made up the intrusion to keep their 4-year-old daughter from finding out her father committed suicide.
“Michele Williams was just trying to protect her daughter in all of this,” Graham said. “She couldn’t protect Greg Williams from himself.”
Advertisement
Graham declined comment to The Post.
In 2013, Williams pleaded guilty to a charge of deadly conduct and tampering with evidence for a reduced 18-year prison sentence. Then she told “48 Hours” she was innocent — and the judge threw out the plea deal, Strickland told The Post.
“We don’t allow people to plead guilty for tactical reasons,” he said.
If convicted, Williams faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on the murder charge and 20 years on the tampering case.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9JopKiqnp67qHnMoq9or6Bkf3F9k2hncmdiaXy1sdeaqmavn6Kur3nOp2StqpmWuW6yzqtkm6SRmLhuw8idprBlnaq%2FpbHRaA%3D%3D