Ex-official, wife charged in slayings of Texas DAs

Associated Press

KAUFMAN, Texas

A former Texas justice of the peace seeking revenge for a theft conviction that ended his judicial career carried out a plot with his wife to kill the men who prosecuted him, authorities said Thursday.

Eric Lyle Williams and his wife, Kim Williams, are charged with capital murder in the slayings of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, his wife, Cynthia, and assistant prosecutor Mark Hasse.

Hasse and McLelland successfully prosecuted Eric Williams for theft last year, leading him to lose his law license and his position as justice of the peace — a judge who handles mostly administrative duties.

Authorities allege Williams, 46, was the gunman in all of the slayings. They say his wife, who also is 46, was the getaway driver when her husband shot Hasse on the street as he walked to work in January. They contend she was a passenger when her husband drove to the McLelland home to carry out those killings two months later, early March 30.

“Basically, this was a collaborative effort between Eric Williams and his wife,” Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said at a news conference Thursday.

According to investigators, the prosecutors had been concerned Williams might be a threat to them, going so far as to carry handguns after his theft conviction last year. Though prosecutors had sought prison time for Williams, he was sentenced to probation.

Eric Williams is being held on $23 million bond, and his wife is being held on $3 million bond. Online jail records do not indicate attorneys representing the couple.

Criminal defense attorneys Toby Shook and Bill Wirskey, both former Dallas County prosecutors, have been appointed as special prosecutors in the case.

The arrest warrants lay out a meticulous revenge plan, in which Eric Williams rented a storage unit in a friend’s name to store a cache of weapons and a car that authorities say is tied to the McLellands’ killings.

Byrnes said that though Williams “has always been on the radar” — investigators questioned him after Hasse’s slaying and again after the McClellands’ deaths — authorities did not have the evidence to tie everything together until this week.

“The discovery of the storage locker probably was the watershed event that put us on to this,” Byrnes said.