Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Dewayne Williams (February 23, 1979 – April 27, 2017) was an American serial killer who killed four people in Arkansas and Missouri. Originally sentenced to life without parole in Arkansas for killing a cheerleader in 1998, Williams escaped from prison in a 500-gallon barrel of pig slop in 1999. He then shot and killed another man and stole his truck several miles away from the prison, before unintentionally killing another man in a police chase in Missouri. Williams was convicted of the murder he committed shortly after escaping prison and was sentenced to death. In 2005, he confessed to committing another murder in 1998. Williams became the last of four inmates executed in Arkansas in April 2017. Early life Williams' parents both had learning difficulties, and his mother was a drug addict who smoked while she was pregnant. Williams' father abused his wife and his children. According to Williams, he would frequently beat him, his mother, and his brothers. At one point, his father kidnapped his mother, holding her at gunpoint for several days. Rarely supervised, Williams started smoking marijuana at the age of 6, and joined the Gangster Disciples and started drinking beer at the age of 9. He moved in and out of several foster homes and juvenile reform schools. After being molested when he was 8, Williams said he started raping other children. "I grew bitter and angry; I was guilt-ridden, too ashamed to speak out, and so I suffered in silence and in loneliness, out of which came forth a vengeance and a vow: never again to be a victimized prey—to be the one on the offense, not the defense; to be the predator, not the prey. In order to survive, in my adolescent mind, I thought it better this way." Williams stopped in his pre-teen years, saying "I reached the conclusion that being the offender doesn't give you any more advantage than being a victim."