Rebecca Garcia still can't bear to celebrate Thanksgiving. She also couldn't stand the other brothers and sisters who looked directly at her. It has been almost three years since her brother-in-law admitted to murdering her sister and niece. When the fate of the murderer of her family is still uncertain, it feels particularly difficult to move on.
64-year-old Paul Graves Williams faces two death sentences for the murder of 57-year-old Lisa Williams and 15-year-old Page Williams in November 2018. A criminal trial cannot be held until Williams is deemed to be mentally capable. A state judge in Alachua County will reconsider the matter again on December 16.
His lawyer said Williams plans to plead guilty if he is proven capable. Prior to this, he was still being held at the Treasure Coast Forensic Treatment Center, located more than 200 miles south of Gainesville, Indiantown, where he received psychotropic medication and repeated psychological evaluations.
"If he wasn't crazy when he went in, he might be crazy now," Garcia said.
Although inconclusive, it seems unlikely that Williams will be released from the forensic treatment center. Whether this is good or bad is also unknown.
A broken sense of peace
Garcia once felt calm at Ocala's home. She is expecting a visit from a wild fox that occasionally naps on the grass outside her home. She enjoys a quiet, cold winter-very different from her hometown of Fort Lauderdale. But so far, her favorite is having her sister Lisa nearby. Their homes are less than an hour apart. That once soothed Garcia. Now it bothers her.
Lisa Williams, a media expert at Stephen Foster Elementary School, has long black hair and deep brown eyes. She and her husband Paul have two daughters, Page and Lindsay. They live in a middle-class community in Gainesville, and their children can safely cross the road to swim in the community pool. They never had any trouble before calling 911 on November 16, 2018.
On that Friday three years ago, six days before Thanksgiving, a colleague of Lisa Williams received a call from her husband. He told them that someone should inspect the house. This warning was immediately disturbing. In addition, Lisa's colleague has not heard from Lisa for several days. She is not like she does not go to work.
They called the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office and asked for a health check on the family. Obviously something went wrong, but it wasn't until 8:54 in the morning when the police arrived at the scene to know what the problem was. By then it was too late.
The officers entered Williams' home through a half-open back door. The floor was stained with blood. There was a red kitchen knife in the sink, and a dirty pair of scissors on the counter.
The police officer then found Lisa and Page, and they were brutally stabbed and beaten. The police report stated that Page was stabbed no less than 35 times. The mother and daughter were moved after their deaths, and the corpses were staged.
A confession and a plan of action
The officer obtained a search warrant and wrapped the Garrison Way house with police tape. They searched the crime scene for several hours before Paul Williams returned home.
He had no previous violent criminal record, but the police immediately detained him. He is their first suspect.
In the sheriff's office, Williams sat down for a seven-hour video interview. In it, he admitted that his behavior was wrong. He said he was "furious" and blamed his urge to kill on "the devil in his heart."
The 64-year-old man looked scrawny in the confessional. He often fidgets and forgets the answers to simple questions about his own life. He appears to be unwell and needs further examination-an item is in progress.
It is possible to pretend incompetence, although it is difficult to prove when pretending. "Criminal disguise" is a term that pretends to be a disease to avoid the consequences of a crime. A study published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry in 2013 found this to be common; out of a sample of nearly 900 defendants, 17.5% of them pretended to be in disguise, appearing to be incapable of being tried.
Since Williams was first prosecuted in December 2018, he has undergone 7 psychological evaluations and 15 felony forensic hearings during his detention at the forensic treatment center. The public defender and prosecutor who oversaw the Williams case refused to discuss the case. Williams could not be reached for comment.
Chapter 916 of the Florida Code requires that a mentally ill person or defendant with a mental disability must be evaluated by no less than two but no more than three mental health experts before being sent to a mental hospital.
These experts looked at whether the defendants could understand the charges against them, the scope of possible penalties, and the adversarial nature of the legal process. The expert also determines whether the defendant can pass information about his case to his lawyer and defend himself in the trial if necessary.
If treatment is necessary and there is no proper care less restrictive than receiving at a state hospital, the court can sentence the defendant to six months in prison. In order to meet the criteria for involuntary hospitalization, the defendant must prove that he is unable to take care of himself or may cause harm to himself or others.
After six months, state hospital administrators must report the defendant’s progress. Another hearing must be held within 30 days to determine whether the defendant is still incompetent. If the defendant is still incapacitated for five consecutive years, his case will be dismissed, but if he regains the capacity, he may be charged again.
This can be a long and arduous process, which may exhaust court resources and increase the burden on family members.
"I never saw any incompetence in Paul," Garcia said. "I don't know what happened. I don't know what he was thinking in his head. I don't think a sane person can reason about such things."
In Florida, the function of the felony forensic court is to ensure that the case is "resolved as quickly as possible." But for incompetent situations, "as soon as possible" may take years or even a lifetime. For the homicide that Paul Williams admitted, almost nothing can really be resolved.
Although defendants who are legally insane are usually found to be incapable of trial, insanity and incompetence are not the same. The two are often confused.
Peg O'Connor, a criminal defense lawyer in Gainesville, said: "The easiest way to distinguish between the two is to look at the mental state of the defendant at the time of the crime." "On the other hand, incompetence. It looks at the defendant’s current ability to track the proceedings and assist his lawyers."
Most states provide some form of defense of insanity. Florida has the commonly known M'Naghten rule, named after an Englishman who shot and killed Edward Drummond, the secretary of Prime Minister Robert Peel in 1843.
M'Naghten intends to shoot Peel. He pursued the Prime Minister because he was delusional to believe that Peel's army was trying to kill him. Once he was captured and tried, M'Naghten became the first known defendant to be acquitted for insanity. Like many modern defendants, he then spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital.
Insanity defense is reserved for serious crimes, such as murder or armed robbery. This is not a defense that will be presented in the event of a misdemeanor. The defendant may end up in a psychiatric hospital longer than he was in jail for pleading guilty.
According to the M'Naghten rule, all defendants are first assumed to be sane and responsible for proving that they were insane at the time of the crime. This feat is rarely achieved.
George Dekle, a retired criminal prosecutor in Lake City, said: "This is the only criminal defense in Florida that I know of where the defendant bears the burden of proof."
Dekle has handled hundreds of cases involving incompetence and insanity, including the 1980 Ted Bundy murder trial in Orlando. Bundy was a serial killer responsible for the rape and murder of more than 30 women, but he was unsuccessful in pleading for insanity. Dekle sued very few defendants during his 30 years of work.
Merely proving that "mental weakness, illness or defect" is not enough to constitute a mental illness. This situation must lead to a lack of awareness of one's actions and the consequences of their actions, or the inability to distinguish right from wrong.
The vague wording makes it a particularly difficult defense. A study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States in 1991 reported that in the eight states surveyed, approximately 1% of felony cases increased the defense of insanity. In these cases, only 26% of the defendants were found not guilty due to insanity.
This is partly because a successful defense of insanity requires clear and convincing evidence, which is the second highest standard of legal proof. And it is not an exact parameter.
"There is no definition to show you," O'Connor said. "We just happen to know that it is higher than superiority and lower than reasonable doubt. It just means very good and very confident in your findings."
However, even if it feels close to self-confidence, there may be a risk of error.
If Paul Williams is declared capable and not acquitted of insanity, he may be sentenced to life imprisonment or death. If the court approves his defense, he will continue to stay in the state hospital-regular check-ups to ensure that he has been in a state of insanity-instead of going to jail.
If the court also finds that he does not meet the criteria for involuntary hospitalization, he may be sent to an outpatient clinic or removed from his job.
Decker said: "There is a saying that no one has been acquitted of guilt or sent to a mental hospital because of insanity, but this is wrong."
He recalled a case he sued about 35 years ago:
Walter Chapman Davis started traveling with his wife Helen and their children in 1986. When they decided to stop at a supermarket, they had arrived in Lake City from Pompano Beach. Walter had a conversation with another female shopper, which Decker said made Helen feel suspicious and jealous.
She entangled Walter for several hours, and she is said to have done it several times before. According to reports, Helen was abused. On this special occasion, her 54-year-old husband suddenly became angry. Walter strangled Helen.
Decker took down Walter's confession. With a tape recorder in his hand, he heard how much Walter wished he hadn't killed his wife, how much he regretted his actions and felt remorse. He did not regard Dekker as a legal lunatic.
However, to Decker's surprise, two experts appointed by the court found that the defendant was temporarily insane. The judge is on their side. And because Walter was not suitable for involuntary hospitalization, even though he admitted his crimes, he left freely.
"The judge said 'Go ahead, don't commit any more crimes,'" Decker said. "Then he walked out the back door of the court and walked into the arms of his children. And he was free."
Walter remained at large until his death in 2002.
Such results are rare. Most defendants who successfully pleaded for insanity were hospitalized, and most were hospitalized for decades or the rest of their lives.
Nevertheless, it is much more likely that the defendant has not reached the defense of insanity at all.
Like Bryan James Riley, he was accused of photographing a family of four in his Lakeland home about two months ago. He claimed that he had received a direct order from God. Like Paul, he plans to rely on the defense of insanity. But in September, the state attorney's office decided to seek the death penalty. His next status meeting is scheduled for February 18.
Or John Jonchuck, who was sentenced to life in prison after dropping his 5-year-old daughter from the Dick Misener Bridge in Tampa Bay in 2015. He also planned to rely on the defense of insanity; he claimed that he heard the voice, his daughter was possessed, and he had no choice but to kill her. Four years after her death, his life sentence came.
Paul Williams' final result is unclear. He has not yet received a criminal trial. It may take years to get there.
"I don't think he is well treated in the state hospital, so it makes me very satisfied," Garcia said. "I know it sounds cold and rude, but it's really hard for me to deal with the whole thing."
Garcia said she tried to forgive her brother-in-law for what she did every day. She didn't know if she would do it. At the same time, she is grateful for Williams facing the possibility of permanent hospitalization. But thinking of his case being dismissed two years later, or his chance of re-entering society one day, she wondered if she could fully recover.
"I want something to end, I want to know exactly where he stands," she said. "Sometimes I can't sleep, thinking about what my sister experienced in the last moments of being with him. I wish I could always be with her. I wish I could be there."
This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service organization in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Florida. Reporters can be reached at ngalicza@freshtakeflorida.com.
Chrissy Shorter, 43, tried to marry Noel Arnold, 45, for seven months.