Trumbull prosecutor asks that North Bloomfield killer remain in prison

Staff report

WARREN

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins has asked the Ohio Parole Board to refuse parole for Robert Williams, 56, of North Bloomfield, who murdered a young Champion woman Nov. 7, 1988, at Stoney’s Lounge on Hyde Oakfield Road in Bristol Township.

Williams killed Debra E. Blaine, 24, of Eldon Avenue in Champion, by shooting her in the back of the head and in the back, cutting her throat with a kitchen knife and standing on her neck until she stopped breathing.

Blaine, a mother of two who was four months pregnant, was working as a waitress and was alone with Williams in the tavern when Williams said he and Blaine argued, causing Williams, then 30, to go home and get a gun.

When he returned, they argued again, this time about the quality of the shrimp dinner she cooked for him, Williams told an investigator.

Williams told the investigator the arguing began after he jokingly asked her to see her breasts, and she hit him in the face, knocking off his glasses.

He said he pulled up her shirt and bra and looked at her breast just after shooting her and cutting her throat but before she died.

“In short, if the facts of this case don’t make you sick, nothing will,” Watkins said in a letter last month to the parole board. Williams’ hearing will take place sometime this month.

Williams was convicted of aggravated murder and gross sexual imposition and was sentenced to a life prison sentence. He has served 26 years so far.