Texas Attorney General Media Advisory

AUSTIN - Texas Attorney General John Cornyn offers the following information on Jeffery Lynn Williams, who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m. on Wednesday, June 26, 2002.

On May 5, 1995, Jeffery Lynn Williams was sentenced to death for the capital murder of Barbara Jackson Pullins during a robbery, which occurred in Houston, Texas, on Oct. 26, 1994. A summary of the evidence presented at trial follows.

FACTS OF THE CRIME

On the evening of Oct. 26, 1994, a male intruder awakened nine-year-old Jamie Jackson by strangling her with his hands. The man stopped choking Jamie and ordered her to take off her clothes. When Jamie told him that she would not let him rape her, he struck her in the mouth. The intruder then raped the young girl and threatened, "If you tell anybody, I'll kill you." He then stole several items from the bedroom and left the apartment.

After she heard the intruder leave, Jamie crept into the living room where she found her mother, Barbara Jackson Pullins, lying motionless on the floor. When she couldn't get a response from her mother, Jamie ran to her grandmother's nearby apartment for help.

When Houston police officers arrived at the apartment, they found Pullins dead on her living room floor. She was found wearing only a pair of panties, and her feet had been bound together by a telephone cord. Pullins also suffered several burn injuries, and officers observed a number of burnt paper towels scattered around the room. Police discovered blood on the kitchen floor and in the kitchen sink, and a smoldering cigarette on the stove. They also collected an unidentified palm print and thumb print from the kitchen sink and the bedroom door.

An autopsy of Pullins' body revealed that she died as a result of asphyxia due to strangulation. Medical examiners also discovered second and third degree burns to Pullins' jaw, neck, upper-torso, belly, arm, hand, thighs, and ankles. Examiners concluded that one burn appeared to have been caused by an iron; other burns were caused by a lit cigarette and by burning paper towels. They also discovered that Pullins' fingers had been burned to where one of the fingernails had become charred. The burns all appeared to have been inflicted after Pullins' death in an attempt to destroy evidence.

Shortly after arriving at the scene, investigators began to interview residents of Pullins' apartment complex. During the interviews, they located a woman named Patricia Allen, who was an acquaintance of Jeffery Lynn Williams. Allen related that earlier that evening, Williams had come to her apartment and was acting in a very unusual manner. After pacing the floor of Allen's apartment for about 20 minutes, Williams indicated that he was going to the store to buy cigarettes. Allen was able to direct police to an adjacent apartment complex where Williams lived, but police did not get an answer when they knocked on Williams' door. Police also discovered that Pullins' car was missing. They soon located the car parked in Williams' apartment complex.

The following day, police received a Crime Stopper's tip that Williams had committed the homicide. As a result, the police arranged for a photo array in which Jamie identified a photograph of Williams as her attacker. Police also obtained a set of Williams' fingerprints for comparison with the palm and thumb print found inside Pullins' apartment. Both prints matched Williams.

After Houston police obtained search and arrest warrants, they returned to Williams' apartment and placed him under arrest. Investigators searched the residence and found a number of items that had been stolen from Pullins' apartment, including Pullins' purse and keys, a jacket, telephone, VCR, television, and a pistol.

Williams was then transported to the police station where he gave a series of three videotaped statements. In his final statement, Williams indicated that he had gone to Pullins' apartment to steal some money, but claimed that he did not plan to kill her. Williams stated that he forced his way inside with a knife and cut Pullins during a brief struggle. He then forced Pullins to disrobe and tied her feet together with a phone cord. After starting to rape the victim, Williams stopped because he did not "get anything out of it." Williams recalled that he then tied Pullins up again, shared a cigarette with her and talked to her. Williams stated that he "just went off," placed a plastic bag over Pullins' head and strangled her to death with the cord from an iron. Williams then burned her body. Williams also admitted to having strangled, raped and injured nine-year-old Jamie.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

March 9, 1995 - A grand jury indicted Williams in the 174th Judicial District Court of Harris County, Texas, for the offense of capital murder. The indictment charged Williams with murdering Barbara Pullins during the course of a robbery.

May 2, 1995 - A jury convicted Williams of capital murder.

May 5, 1995 - Following a separate punishment hearing, Williams was sentenced to death.

December 18, 1996 - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Williams' conviction and sentence.

January 29, 1997 - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied rehearing.

March 3, 1998 - Williams filed an application for writ of habeas corpus with the trial court.

November 3, 1999 - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied habeas relief in an unpublished order.

January 27, 2000 - Williams filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus with the United States District Court.

April 5, 2001 - The federal district court denied Williams habeas relief and refused a certificate of appealability.

January 4, 2002 - The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the denial of federal habeas relief.

February 12, 2002 - The state trial court signed an order setting Williams' execution for Wednesday, June 26, 2002.

March 30, 2002 - Williams filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court.

June 10, 2002 - The United States Supreme Court denied Williams' petition for writ of certiorari.

PRIOR CRIMINAL HISTORY

During Williams' state capital murder trial, the prosecution presented the following evidence of Williams' lengthy criminal history.

April 28, 1989 - At age 17, Williams was adjudicated as an adult for the first time. He pleaded guilty to the felony offense of auto theft based on an incident that occurred on March 31, 1989. He was placed on probation, ordered to pay a $400 fine and ordered to spend 30 days in the Harris County Jail.

June 12, 1989 - Williams and another man crashed a pair of stolen vehicles into a ditch. A nearby resident named Sivco Volchev saw the two men emerge from the wrecked vehicles and initially tried to ask if they needed help. However, Volchev quickly realized that the cars had been stolen. He then told a neighbor to call police and set out in his own car to find the two men. When he pulled up next to Williams, Williams pulled a gun on him. Volchev sped away but Williams fired a shot which struck and flattened his rear tire.

June 30, 1989 - Williams pleaded guilty to the felony offenses of aggravated assault and theft of a motor vehicle based on the incident involving Volchev. Williams was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in the Texas Department of Corrections on each offense to be served concurrently. Williams' prior probation from his April 1989 conviction was also revoked, and he was sentenced to four years confinement in that case.

January 30, 1990 - Williams was paroled from the Texas Department of Corrections.

June 27, 1990 - Williams pleaded guilty to the felony offense of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle committed on April 27, 1990. He was sentenced to 10 years confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections.

April 26, 1991 - Williams was paroled from the Texas Department of Corrections.

July 15, 1991 - Williams pleaded guilty to the felony offense of auto theft committed on June 22, 1991. He was sentenced to 25 years confinement in the Texas Department of Corrections.

March 11, 1994 - Williams was paroled from the Texas Department of Corrections.

ProDeathPenalty.com

Strapped to the death chamber gurney, Williams, 30, recited the 23rd Psalm. As the drugs began flowing, Jeffery Williams added, "I thank you Lord for all good things you have given me. Bless my family." Then he gurgled and gasped, before slipping into unconsciousness. He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m., 8 minutes after the lethal dose began. "If a guy set out to kill like he killed, a guy shouldn't die that easy," Barbara Pullins' brother, Willie Collins, said after watching Williams' execution. "I was looking forward to it, like any other family member should. "I'm at ease. I had to wait eight years for this here." Willie Collins said he'd tell his niece, now 16 and too young according to prison rules to be an execution witness, that "justice was served for her mother at 6:17."

From the witness stand, the girl pointed to the three-time convict as the man who woke her Oct. 26, 1994, by choking her in her bed and then punching her in the head as she struggled. "If you tell anybody, I'll kill you," evidence showed he told her. After Williams left, the girl found the lifeless body of her 31-year-old mother. Unable to awaken her mother, the girl went to her grandmother's apartment nearby and police were summoned.

"You hate to have to put the daughter through that but it also is necessary in order for the jury to know what happened and you get the conviction," Harris County Assistant District Attorney Lyn McClellan said this week, recalling the girl's testimony. Evidence showed Jeffery Williams, a ninth-grade dropout who lived in an adjacent apartment complex, forced his way into Barbara Pullins' place at knifepoint, then raped and strangled her with the cord of an iron she had been using. The strangulation came after he unsuccessfully tried to suffocate the school bus driver by placing a plastic bag over her head. The evidence also showed he touched her body repeatedly with a lighted cigarette to make sure she was dead, then tried to burn the corpse. After attacking Barbara Pullins, he moved on to the daughter, then stole Pullins' car and some items from the apartment. The car was found near Jeffery Williams' residence. Her purse and keys, her television and a video recorder were found inside his home. His thumbprint and palmprint were found in her apartment. He confessed to police that he "just went off."

When Jeffery Williams was 17, he picked up his first felony auto theft conviction and a 30-day jail term. Two months later, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for aggravated assault and another auto theft, but was paroled after only 4 months in January 1990. By the following year, he was back in prison with a 10-year term for auto theft, but was on parole within nine months. It took less than four months for him to receive 25 years for yet another auto theft. He was paroled about 2 years later in March 1994. The killing occurred seven months later. Defense lawyers at his capital murder trial said Jeffery Williams was the product of a miserable childhood and a victim of physical and sexual abuse. Prosecutors pointed out that during one of his prison terms, he had to be removed from duties as a hog butcher because he liked it too much. A Harris County jury deliberated for 23 minutes before returning with a death sentence. "You're not going to see a lot of protestations about him receiving the death penalty except for people who protest every death penalty case," McClellan said. "There's no issues on guilt-innocence, there's no issues on mental retardation or competency or anything else."

Texas Execution Information Center by David Carson.

Jeffrey Lynn Williams, 30, was executed by lethal injection on 26 June in Huntsville, Texas for the rape, murder, and robbery of a woman in her apartment.

In October 1994, Williams, then 23, forced his way into the apartment of Barbara Jackson Pullins. He cut her with a knife in a brief struggle, then forced her to disrobe and raped her. He then tied her feet together with a telephone cord and placed a plastic bag over head, in an attempt to suffocate her. When that failed, he strangled her with the cord from an iron. After burning her body with a cigarette to make sure she was dead, Williams attempted to set the body afire by igniting a roll of paper towels.

Williams then moved to a bedroom where he found the victim's 9-year-old daughter, Jamie Jackson, sleeping. He started strangling her with his hands, and she awoke. Williams then ordered her to take off her clothes, struck her in the mouth, and raped her. He told her, "If you tell anybody, I'll kill you." He then stole several items from the apartment and drove off in Barbara Pullins' car.

After she heard Williams leave, Jamie went into the living room and found her mother lying motionless on the floor. She then ran to her grandmother's apartment nearby.

Police investigators who arrived on the scene found a neighbor in the apartment complex who said that an acquaintance of hers, Jeffrey Williams, came over to her apartment. He was there for about 20 minutes and acted in a very unusual manner, pacing the floor. The neighbor, Patricia Allen, directed police to the adjacent apartment complex where Williams lived. They found Pullins' car there.

Police matched the fingerprints of Williams, who had four prior felony convictions, with fingerprints taken from Pullins' apartment. They also made a photo array in which Jackson identified a photograph of Williams as her attacker. Williams was arrested. Pullins' purse and keys and several items from her apartment, including a VCR, television, and pistol, were in his apartment.

Williams made a videotaped statement in which he confessed to raping and murdering Barbara Pullins and raping Jamie Jackson. He said that he went to the apartment to steal from Pullins, but didn't plan to kill her. After he started to rape her, he stopped, he said, because "I wasn't getting anything out of it." He then started smoking a cigarette and talked with her and that was when he "just went off" and killed her, he said.

Williams' first felony conviction was for auto theft in April 1989, at age 17. He was placed on probation, ordered to pay a $400 fine, and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Within days of getting out of jail, Williams stole another car and shot at a man who tried to chase him. He was convicted of auto theft and aggravated assault in June 1989 and received a 7-year sentence. He served four months and was paroled in January 1990. In July 1990, he returned to prison with a 10-year sentence for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He served nine months of that sentence and was paroled in April 1991. In August 1991, he returned to prison with a 25-year sentence for auto theft. He served 2½ years of that sentence and was paroled in March 1994. (At the time, early parole was common in Texas due to strict prison population caps imposed by U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice.)

Jackson testified against Williams at his capital murder trial. The defense testified that Williams was a victim of physical and sexual abuse as a child. A jury convicted him in May 1995 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in December 1996. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," Williams said from the death chamber. After he finished reciting the 23rd Psalm in its entirety, the lethal injection was started. Williams then said, "I thank you Lord for all the good things you have given me. Bless my family." He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.

Canadian Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty - Jeffery Williams Homepage

I was charged with the felony of capital murder. The robbery and murder of Barbara J. Lullins, October 26, 1994 in her apartment.

On May 5, 1995, the court read "punishment at death by lethal injection". The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction in a public opinion delivered December 18, 1996. Williams vs. State, 937 S.W. 2d 479 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996)

I entered a plea of not guilty, even by reason of temporary insanity to the State appointed lawyers and solicitor.

My lack of memory failure, even shock which you don't receive counsel of a valuable distinguishing, discreet doctor in characterizing my history of hallucinations and nervous break-down and forgetfulness which I claim it was the medication that caused these problems, I soon abandoned a year ago after many side-effects.

I stand before the system struggling to stay alive, yet strong. I have God to thank daily for watching over me as I gain knowledge, hoping this system does not take me with swiftness before I become aware of failures, the injustice situation they put you in. Lack of knowledge can kill you. The issues of my case is farther greater, issues that may save my life. I only know little of the law, strategy that is produced wisely.

My Habeas Corpus was denied. Grounds raised for Relief Appeals: Ineffective assistance of counsel: 1) Failure to obtain and present evidence of lesser included offenses. 2) Failure to obtain a jury instruction authorizing conviction for lesser included offenses. This is what stands in the Federal Court.

Although, Habeas Corpus Attorney, State appointed Robin Norris claims, due to the lack of expertise and the ineffectiveness of my first attorneys Ellis McCullough, Roland Moore III and trial lawyers makes it difficult for anyone coming behind them. They assist prosecuting attorney by fashion. Suppressed information, police reports.

A party I attended, highly toxicated from the win of a drinking contest. The 2nd leading investigator, Tom McCorvey, knew me from my youth, jumped me, beat me and bit me in the back. Children Protection of West Dallas in Houston took photos of the abuse, took me home. I was 15 yrs. old or younger.

Trial Attorney failure. The list can go on. There is evidence that is present to prove that I was wrongfully charged. Even to the claim of innocence.

Brenda Kelly's Support Page for Jeffery Lynn Williams

The Huntsville Item

June 26, 2002 "Williams Executed for 1994 Killing of Houston Woman," by Mark Passwaters, (June 26, 2002)

Jeffery Lynn Williams, sentenced to death for the 1994 rape and murder of a Houston woman, was executed Wednesday night in the death chamber of the Huntsville "Walls" Unit.

Williams, 30, was sentenced to death by a Harris County jury for killing Barbara Jackson Pullins on the night of Oct. 26, 1994. Though several members of Pullins' family were present for his execution, Williams did not acknowledge them or offer any remorse for his actions in his final statement. Instead, Williams - with his head toward the ceiling and his eyes shut - began his last statement with the phrase, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." After completing the entire 23rd Psalm, Williams said, "Amen." The "Amen" was echoed by his mother, aunt, uncle and two friends who were on hand as personal witnesses.

Williams was silent for a few moments as the dose of chemicals that ended his life was started at 6:09 p.m. Then he said, "Lord, I thank you for all the good things you've given me. Bless my family." Almost immediately after finishing his statement, Williams gurgled and lost consciousness. His mother, Veronica Green, began sobbing loudly as an unidentified family friend tried to comfort her. "He's with Jesus now," the woman told Green. "He won't ever be isolated again." Williams was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. As the family and media witnesses began to filter out of the room, Anthony Williams, the man's uncle, lingered to take a final look at his nephew's body.

Williams was given the death sentence after being found guilty of killing Pullins by putting a plastic bag over her head and strangling her with the cord of an iron. Williams - who claimed he was temporarily insane - said he did not plan to kill Pullins, but merely rob her. He said he forced his way into the apartment, cut Pullins with a knife and forced her to strip. He said he started to rape her, but stopped because he "wasn't getting anything out of it." Williams then said he tied up Pullins, shared a cigarette with her and talked to her. He then claimed he "just went off," and killed her.

After killing Pullins, Williams then attacked her sleeping 9-year-old daughter, Jamie Jackson. When Jackson started to struggle, Williams stopped choking her, hit her in the mouth and told her to strip. He then raped her. "If you tell anybody, I'll kill you," Williams said as he left the apartment.

After he left the apartment, Jackson went to tell her mother what had happened. She found her mother dead on the living room floor, wearing only a pair of panties and her feet bound by a telephone cord. Medical examiners later determined Pullins had died of asphyxiation, but had a number of second- and third- degree burns over her body. At least one of the burns appeared to have been caused by an iron; the rest apparently were caused by a cigarette or burning paper towels. The burns were inflicted after Pullins death in an attempt to destroy evidence.

Police arrested Williams the next day, as a large amount of evidence quickly appeared to link him to the crime. Pullins' stolen car was found at Williams' apartment complex; shortly afterward, a Crime Stoppers tip indicated Williams was the man responsible for Pullins' death.

Armed with that information, police arranged for Jackson to look at number of pictures to see if she could identify the man who raped her. She quickly picked out Williams as the assailant. After thumb and palm prints taken from the crime scene were found to match Williams', he was taken into custody. A search of his apartment discovered a number of items stolen from the victim's apartment, including her purse and car keys.

Jackson was unable to attend Williams' execution, but a number of Pullins' family members were witnesses. Two of her brothers, her sister and cousin watched as he was put to death. "He showed no remorse. He looked at us with a smile," said William Collins, Pullins' brother. "But it doesn't trouble me now. Justice has been served." Collins said he would tell his niece "justice was served for her mom at 6:17."

Collins said he never considered not attending Williams' execution. "I was looking forward to it, as any family member should," he said. "I'm at ease, and I think the whole family's at ease. I went through eight years to get here." Collins noted his sister's birthday would have been next week. "I believe she got a birthday gift a week early," said Reginald Ellis, Pullins' cousin. Both men indicated they would liked to have seen the man who killed their relative suffer more than he did. "I'm going to say it like this: If a guy set out to kill the way he did, he shouldn't die that easy," Collins said after a moment's hesitation. "I still feel he got off easy," Ellis said.