BATON ROUGE, La. -- Condemned killer Robert Wayne Williams had a light criminal record for an unemployed high school dropout from the ghetto -- until he borrowed a shotgun and fired into the face of a grocery security guard.
Now Williams, 29, is scheduled to die in the electric chair at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola between midnight and 3 a.m. Tuesday.
Fellow inmant Timothy Baldwin, 49, sentenced to die at the same time for beating to death an 84-year-old woman, was granted a stay of execution Friday pending an April 15 hearing on his request for a new trial. If his sentence is carried out, Williams will become the fifth person to be put to death legally in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the capital punishment in 1976. His immediate predecessor was Steven T. Judy, who died in the electric chair in Indiana State Prsion the morning of March 9.
And Williams will be the first black executed in the United States since Aaron Mitchell died in San Quentin April 12, 1967.
During his trial, Williams claimed he had used heroin and other drugs. He said he was high during the holdup in which he literally blew away the face of the 67-year-old security guard, Willie Kelley.
'He diDn't impress me as being angry,' said lawyer Marion Weimer, a public defender who handled Williams' 1979 trial. 'He probably was a person who was the type who could be led. He probably got to running around with the wrong people.'
Until Jan. 5, 1979 Williams had a record of two misdemeanor offenses. Police consider it an extremely light criminal record for an unemployed, high school dropout from a black neighborhood of shanties and rundown apartments just north of the Louisiana State University campus.
But on that winter night, Williams borrowed a .12-guage shotgun from a neighbor and headed for an A&P supermarket in a busy shopping center. After a quick stakeout he donned a ski mask and went in to rob the store.
As assistant manager Greg Lee struggled to open a safe, security guard Willie Kelley, 67, went for his gun.
'Don't do it, man,' Williams shouted, and fired directly into Kelley's face from a distance of three feet.
Witnesses said Kelley was trying to surrender the weapon.
Williams said the shotgun discharged accidently.
When the jury returned its guilty verdict and death sentence, members of Williams' family moaned and wept.
'You murderers,' a woman cried as the courtroom was cleared.
Frank Blackburn, warden of the maximum security Louisiana State Penitentiary, said Williams causes no trouble on Death Row. He is visited regularly by family members.
Blackburn said he would visit with Williams during the weekend to talk about the pending execution -- and to ask if he has any last wishes.
