ATMORE, Al. — Alabama executed Jeremy Williams for the 2021 rape and murder of the young Georgia girl. He was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CDT following the injection.
“I want to thank God for forgiving me for my sins so I can meet him in peace,” Williams said in his final words. He rocked his head back and forth and smiled and appeared to sing or speak before slowing and becoming still on the gurney.
A member of Williams’ family, who was seated near the media, cried quietly throughout the execution.
Williams, who pleaded guilty to killing Kamarie Holland, had declined to appeal and requested that his death sentence be carried out. In letters to the Alabama attorney general’s office, Williams sought an immediate execution date so his victim’s family “may have some type of closure and satisfaction which they deserve.”
Williams, 42, raped and strangled Holland after offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform a sex act, prosecutors said, adding he filmed his attack.
“To see on video what he did to this baby, what a grown man could do to a child, it’s shocking, it’s horrible, it’s disgusting,” Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey said. “It’s just a level of evil.”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, in a statement after the execution, described the crime as “evil.”
“The unspeakable nature of this crime is exactly why we have the death penalty statute in the state of Alabama,” she said.
The girl’s mother is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking.
Chancey described Kamarie’s final moments as “horrific.”
“That baby didn’t die in peace,” he said at a later news conference, recalling Williams’ last words about dying in peace.
Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor, who called the case the worst he’d investigated in 39 years of law enforcement, said he believed Williams sought swift execution over worries about how he would be treated in prison.
“He didn’t want to look over his shoulder for 30 years, in my opinion,” Taylor said.
A father remembers
Corey Holland, Kamarie’s father, said she was an exuberant child who loved princesses and made people laugh.
“She loved playing dress-up, all her little Halloween costumes and her princess stuff I got her. She liked anything girly,” Holland said.
Williams was also a suspect in the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska, but charges were not filed until 2022.
One of three executions nationwide
Williams’ execution was Alabama’s first this year. A nitrogen gas execution was blocked in June after a federal judge ruled the method unconstitutional.
Alabama was one of three states to execute death row inmates on Aug. 13. Oklahoma and Tennessee also carried out death penalties. The last time three executions were carried out on the same day in the U.S. was on Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death.
By Kim Chandler, Travis Loller and Jamie Stengle
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