William Williams (murderer)

For other people named William Williams, see William Williams (disambiguation).

William Williams (1877 – 13 February 1906) was the last person executed by Minnesota. The circumstances of his execution helped lead to the abolition of capital punishment in Minnesota.

Williams was a Cornish immigrant working as a miner in Saint Paul, Minnesota. While hospitalized for diphtheria in 1904, Williams befriended John Keller, a local teenager who was recovering from the same disease. Williams and Keller developed a long-term homosexual relationship. Over the next two years they lived together in St. Paul and took two trips to the city of Winnipeg in Canada. Keller's father did not approve of their relationship and told his son that he was no longer permitted to travel with Williams. Keller then returned to his parents' home.

In 1905, Williams sent Keller a number of letters expressing love for him and requesting that Keller join him in Winnipeg. However, these letters, at the insistence of Mr. and Mrs. Keller, went unanswered. Williams returned to Saint Paul in April 1905 and, in a fit of rage, shot and killed both Keller and Keller's mother. The shootings took place in the Keller home.

Keller was killed instantly when he was shot in the back of the head while he was in bed. His mother died from a gunshot wound a week later. Keller's father was not at home at the time of the shooting.

Trial

Williams was arrested and tried for premeditated murder. He pled not guilty by reason of "emotional insanity." His defence was rejected and on 19 May 1905, he was convicted of murder. He was sentenced to death by hanging. On 8 December 1905, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence. One judge dissented in the judgment, arguing that Williams's crime bore the signs of a crime of passion and therefore might have not been premeditated.

Execution

On 13 February 1906, Williams was to be executed in the basement of the Ramsey County Jail in Saint Paul. Unfortunately, the rope that was being used to hang him proved to be too long. When Williams hit the floor after dropping through the trap door of the gallows, three police officers had to hold his body up by the rope for over 14 minutes, until he finally died of strangulation.

Williams's botched execution was used by opponents of the death penalty in Minnesota to argue that capital punishment should be abolished in the state. Minnesota abolished the death penalty in 1911, and since then it has never been reinstated.

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