Kenneth Dewayne Williams was born on February 23, 1979, into a deeply troubled environment. Both of his parents had learning difficulties, and his mother struggled with drug addiction throughout his childhood, reportedly using substances while pregnant with him. His father was abusive and violent, regularly beating Williams, his siblings, and his mother. The household was marked by chaos, including a traumatic incident in which his father allegedly kidnapped and held his mother at gunpoint for several days.

Williams had minimal supervision growing up. He began smoking marijuana at the age of six and joined a gang, the Gangster Disciples, by the time he was nine. Alongside this early criminal exposure, he also started drinking and acting out violently. His childhood was further fractured by time spent bouncing between foster care and juvenile facilities.

One of the most disturbing aspects of his early years was his experience with sexual abuse. Williams was molested at the age of eight. In response to his trauma, he later admitted to becoming a predator himself for a period, victimizing other children. He later stopped, recognizing the cycle of abuse and the emptiness it brought, stating that being the offender gave him no power or advantage.

In 1996, at age 17, Williams was sentenced to five years in prison for escape and battery. He was released on April 2, 1998, only months before he would commit his first murder.

On the night of December 13, 1998, Williams crossed a deadly line. He approached 19-year-old Dominique "Nikki" Hurd, a University of Arkansas pre-med student and cheerleader, and her boyfriend, Peter Robertson, while they were taking photos in a parking lot in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Pretending to help, Williams offered to take their picture — but instead pulled out a revolver and forced them into their vehicle. After robbing them at gunpoint, he ordered Robertson to withdraw money from an ATM. Throughout the ride, Williams gave conflicting signals, at times insisting he would not hurt them.

Eventually, he had them stop at multiple dead-end streets. In a horrifying twist, Williams forced Robertson to take a degrading photo of Hurd before continuing their ride. At the final location, Williams told them to kneel behind a shed. Then, without further warning, he opened fire, targeting them both. Robertson miraculously survived. Hurd was shot fatally in the head. Williams burned the vehicle and left the scene.

On December 18, 1998, Williams was arrested and charged with a slew of offenses, including capital murder, attempted capital murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping, and arson. During his trial, prosecutors sought the death penalty, but the jury handed down a sentence of life without parole. Williams showed no remorse, taunting the victim’s family after the verdict.

Less than a year later, on October 3, 1999, Williams executed a daring escape from the Cummins Unit prison. He concealed himself inside a 500-gallon barrel of pig slop, which was transported outside the prison gates. Once outside, he jumped out and fled on foot, hiding in a ditch before continuing his escape.

Williams made his way to the home of 57-year-old Cecil Boren, a retired prison warden and farmer. While Boren was outside, Williams stole a .22 caliber Ruger pistol from his home. As Boren walked inside, Williams ambushed him, shooting him in the chest and continuing to fire multiple rounds, including one to the head. He then looted the house, changed into Boren’s clothes, stole valuables, and drove off in Boren’s truck.

The next day, in Lebanon, Missouri, a police officer spotted the stolen truck. Williams initially pulled over but then fled at high speed, reaching up to 120 miles per hour. The chase ended when he collided with a vehicle driven by 24-year-old Michael Greenwood, a Culligan water delivery driver, who was killed instantly. Williams reportedly spat on Greenwood’s body before being arrested.

Williams was charged and convicted for the murder of Cecil Boren in 2000 and was sentenced to death. Though not prosecuted for Greenwood’s death, his role in that fatal crash was widely known. In 2005, Williams wrote a letter to the press claiming he had found faith in God and apologizing for his crimes.

In that same year, he also confessed to another murder committed on the same night as Dominique Hurd’s. He admitted to robbing and fatally shooting 36-year-old Jerrell Jenkins, whose body was discovered in a ditch by a child on the way to school. Williams pleaded guilty to Jenkins’ murder and received an additional life sentence.

While on death row, Williams became an ordained minister and began speaking out about his regrets and redemption. In an article for The Marshall Project, published just weeks before his execution, he reflected on his transformation and took full responsibility for his actions. He stated that while he once questioned whether people saw him as human, he came to realize it was his own disregard for human life that led him to death row.

On April 27, 2017, Williams was executed by lethal injection at the Cummins Unit. He was the last of four inmates executed in Arkansas that month. His final meal included fried chicken, sweet rice, BBQ pinto beans, a cinnamon roll, and a peanut butter cookie.

In his last statement, Williams read an apology directed at the families of his victims: Dominique Hurd, Jerrell Jenkins, Cecil Boren, and Michael Greenwood. Notably, the daughter of Michael Greenwood, Kayla, forgave Williams and even arranged for his daughter and granddaughter to visit him one last time before his execution.