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Execution of Edgefield County convicted killer set for today web posted February 20, 2009  COLUMBIA – Luke Williams lll, 59, (Left)
formerly of Evans, Ga., will be executed by lethal injection at 6 pm
today at the S.C. Department of Corrections’ capital punishment
facility located at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.
The S.C. Supreme Court on Jan. 23 issued an order directing the
Corrections Department to carry out the sentence. Williams was
convicted in Edgefield for the June 19, 1991 double murder of his wife
and 12-year-old adopted son in November of 1993. Their bodies were
found in a partially burned van on Deep Step Road in Edgefield County.Reports of the crime were that Williams staged the murder to make it appear as if his wife and son were involved in a car crash and died in the ensuing fire. However, forensic evidence showed William’s wife, 39-year-old Linda Williams, was beaten to death and their 12-year-old adopted son, Shaun, had been strangled. The Edgefield County jury convicted Williams on both murders and handed down the death penalty. Solicitor Donnie Myers, of the 11th Judicial Circuit, tried the case personally. Williams was said to have taken out almost $600,000 in insurance on his family shortly before the murders. During his more than 15 years on death row numerous appeals have been filed and on January 23, 2009 the South Carolina Supreme Court gave its final ruling that the convictions and sentence were valid. By law the execution is scheduled on the fourth Friday following the Supreme Court’s order, today at 6 pm. Williams will be the first parent executed for killing his child in South Carolina since the ban on executions was lifted in 1977. Mary Christina Dey, 21, and Devin Antoine Watson, 26, were sentenced September 10, 2007 in the Edgefield County Courthouse by Judge Doyet A. Early to 25 and 30 years respectively in the homicide by child abuse of their 13-month old son Darrell Watson in August of 2003. Judge Early, often times stating his disbelief in the brutality of the killing, challenged defense attorneys’ attempts to mitigate fault for their respective clients in the case. “You got the wrong judge,” Early said. Myers sought the death penalty in the case until a plea agreement was stuck just before trial. The only open death penalty trial on docket is that of Steven Louis Barnes who is accused with five others in the 2002 murder of Samuel Sturrup, 16, of Augusta. Sturrup’s body was found in a wooded area off Rainbow Falls Road. Two Edgefield County men are also charged in the murder, Alexander and Julio Hunsburger. © Copyright 2009
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