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True Crime Documentary - Leslie Allen Williams · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:05
Speaker 1: On May the twenty fourth, nineteen ninety two, a grieving
0:09
Speaker 1: man arrived at a quiet cemetery to place flowers on
0:13
Speaker 1: his father's grave, but something disturbing caught his eye.
0:20
Speaker 2: He looks off in the distance and he sees this
0:23
Speaker 2: man that appears to be assaulting this woman, and so
0:27
Speaker 2: he realized something was really wrong.
0:30
Speaker 1: The man rushed out of the cemetery to find help.
0:34
Speaker 1: After a police chase, the assailant was caught and the
0:38
Speaker 1: woman was rescued from the back of his car.
0:41
Speaker 3: She was near death because she was being affixiated by
0:46
Speaker 3: some sort of device around her neck.
0:50
Speaker 1: The attacker was thirty eight year old Leslie Allan Williams,
0:54
Speaker 1: and police soon discovered that this wasn't his first abduction.
0:59
Speaker 1: After finding evidence in his home leaking him to four
1:02
Speaker 1: missing teenage girls, Williams confessed to their murders.
1:07
Speaker 4: I think William's confessing was for his own benefit and
1:11
Speaker 4: absolutely nobody else's benefit whatsoever.
1:16
Speaker 3: When we interviewed him, he expressed no emotion. It was
1:21
Speaker 3: like he was ordering a cup of coffee.
1:24
Speaker 1: Left with nowhere to run. Leslie Allen Williams had been
1:29
Speaker 1: unmasked as one of the world's most evil killers. In
1:56
Speaker 1: July nineteen ninety two, at Oakland County Circuit Court in Michigan,
2:02
Speaker 1: Leslie Alan Williams pleaded guilty to the murders of eighteen
2:06
Speaker 1: year old Cami Via Nueva, sixteen year old Michelle Urbin
2:10
Speaker 1: and her fourteen year old sister Melissa, and fifteen year
2:13
Speaker 1: old Cynthia Jones. The serial killer even led police to
2:19
Speaker 1: the sites where he buried their bodies.
2:23
Speaker 5: There can be no doubt that Leslie Allan Williams was
2:26
Speaker 5: a truly evil man. He took the life of four
2:31
Speaker 5: young high school students who had their whole lives in
2:34
Speaker 5: front of them. It was an act of grotesque depravity.
2:41
Speaker 2: A really sad thing about this case is each one
2:43
Speaker 2: of these four teenage girls he killed, he told them
2:47
Speaker 2: that he would let them go. He told them that
2:52
Speaker 2: if they just did what he said, they'd be okay.
2:55
Speaker 2: He'd release them. And I think that makes it way worse.
3:00
Speaker 1: The families and the jury were horrified to learn that
3:04
Speaker 1: Williams had previously been let out of prison early but
3:08
Speaker 1: good behavior.
3:09
Speaker 3: Leslee Allen Williams had been a career criminal and was
3:14
Speaker 3: released many times by our parole boards, and it was
3:21
Speaker 3: shortly after his release that the first of the four
3:26
Speaker 3: girls that he kidnapped and killed disappeared.
3:32
Speaker 2: There was a great deal of criticism publicly, especially in
3:36
Speaker 2: the media. There were people at the time of the
3:39
Speaker 2: Williams case who began campaigning for a reform of Michigan's
3:43
Speaker 2: parole system.
3:46
Speaker 3: If Williams had not been caught in May of nineteen
3:49
Speaker 3: ninety two, he would not have stopped. There been other
3:56
Speaker 3: people kidnapped, violated, and killed.
4:05
Speaker 1: This killer's story begins in the Midwest. Leslie Allan Williams
4:12
Speaker 1: was born on Independence Day, July the fourth, nineteen fifty three,
4:17
Speaker 1: and he grew up in Detroit, Michigan.
4:21
Speaker 5: His mother had been married before and she had two daughters,
4:26
Speaker 5: but then she married Leslie's father and they had three
4:31
Speaker 5: boys together, but neither were exactly perfect parents.
4:40
Speaker 2: He grew up in his earliest years in a suburb
4:43
Speaker 2: of Detroit called Gardens City, and his mom was known
4:47
Speaker 2: to work prostitution in the home. His dad was sexually
4:52
Speaker 2: abusing Leslie's sisters, so it was a troubled upbringing.
5:00
Speaker 4: When Williams witnessed that sexual violence in his home, the
5:03
Speaker 4: sexual abuse of his siblings, and the sex work of
5:09
Speaker 4: his mum. He probably learned quite early on that relationships
5:14
Speaker 4: are highly transactional and then not about emotional connection, and
5:19
Speaker 4: that is going to have a significant impact on the
5:22
Speaker 4: way he conducts his own relationships.
5:25
Speaker 1: After an investigation into the sexual abuse of his stepdaughters,
5:31
Speaker 1: Williams's father was committed to a state hospital, but the
5:35
Speaker 1: criminally insane, but not before alerting police to his wife's
5:40
Speaker 1: sex work.
5:44
Speaker 5: Leslie's mother took some of the family to California in
5:49
Speaker 5: an effort, I think, to escape the reputation that she
5:52
Speaker 5: had in Detroit. She then fell in love, and after
5:59
Speaker 5: she was divorced, she married her third husband, but that
6:04
Speaker 5: too didn't really go well. In the end, she decided
6:12
Speaker 5: that she would divorce the third husband, but then tragically,
6:18
Speaker 5: on the night before the divorce, hearing her third husband
6:23
Speaker 5: went to visit her and killed her, shut her in
6:26
Speaker 5: the head before killing himself. She has two boys of
6:33
Speaker 5: hers with her and anything they might have seen as
6:36
Speaker 5: normal has gone out of the window. It's hard to
6:40
Speaker 5: imagine a worse upbringing.
6:44
Speaker 1: At just nine years old, Leslie Allan Williams had lost
6:48
Speaker 1: both of his parents.
6:50
Speaker 4: His mother was murdered, his father was a sex offender.
6:55
Speaker 4: He had no stability, no boundaries in his life at all,
7:01
Speaker 4: and no child should have to tolerate that.
7:07
Speaker 2: Now Leslie was without either parent, so at that point
7:12
Speaker 2: he and a brother of his were brought back to
7:15
Speaker 2: Michigan to live with their grandparents in Milford, which is
7:18
Speaker 2: another Detroit suburb on the west side of Metro Detroit.
7:24
Speaker 1: As Williams neared adulthood, he turned towards a darker criminal path.
7:32
Speaker 2: He was only seventeen years old in nineteen seventy he
7:36
Speaker 2: was arrested for breaking and entering in a home and
7:40
Speaker 2: that began a long criminal career.
7:44
Speaker 4: William's history of offending it started when he was really young,
7:48
Speaker 4: and the younger it starts, why often, the more longevity
7:53
Speaker 4: it has, the more it's.
7:54
Speaker 2: Going to carry on.
7:56
Speaker 5: Between nineteen seventy and nineteen eighty three, he's literally in
8:00
Speaker 5: and out of prison, in and out of the court.
8:03
Speaker 5: It's just a litany including burglary, more significantly, sexual assault
8:10
Speaker 5: and attempted kidnapping. He's either being charged, waiting on bail
8:17
Speaker 5: in prison.
8:19
Speaker 4: For somebody like Williams, who was relentless in his offending,
8:23
Speaker 4: he may have felt empowered by the system not holding
8:28
Speaker 4: him to account. But also I think, given his personality traits,
8:33
Speaker 4: I think he already felt quite entitled and empowered to
8:38
Speaker 4: behave the way he did, and probably manipulated and used
8:43
Speaker 4: the system.
8:45
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty three, Williams broke into a woman's home,
8:49
Speaker 1: but what started as a routine burglary quickly took a
8:53
Speaker 1: sinister turn and escalated to attempted kidnap as sexual assault.
9:00
Speaker 2: He recognized at that point as being a habitual offender,
9:04
Speaker 2: and so he had a couple different sentences in front
9:07
Speaker 2: of him. For the actual assault, he had a sentence
9:09
Speaker 2: of five to ten years. For being a habitual offender,
9:13
Speaker 2: he had a sentence of seven to thirty years.
9:17
Speaker 5: It's the first lengthy sentence he's had, so he's going
9:20
Speaker 5: to be an older or at least an old man
9:23
Speaker 5: by the time he gets out of jail.
9:26
Speaker 1: With Williams behind buzz, women in Detroit could finally sleep
9:31
Speaker 1: a little easier, but not for long.
9:35
Speaker 5: He's an absolutely model prisoner. He has a particularly receptive
9:40
Speaker 5: psychiatrist who says, well, I think you know you are
9:44
Speaker 5: really made splendid progress, and you know we want to
9:49
Speaker 5: rehabilitate you. And so writes a very glowing report to
9:53
Speaker 5: the prison authorities about just how well Leslie Williams had done.
9:59
Speaker 1: In thirty seven year old Williams was released on parole
10:04
Speaker 1: after serving just six years of its maximum thirty year sentence.
10:09
Speaker 4: People were probably manipulated by this idea that because he
10:14
Speaker 4: was polite, that somehow that meant he wasn't dangerous, despite
10:20
Speaker 4: all of the evidence showing that he was a repeat
10:24
Speaker 4: and serial offender. In my opinion, he could have been
10:30
Speaker 4: kept in longer, and he should have been. I don't
10:33
Speaker 4: know why they were so lenient with him given the
10:38
Speaker 4: nature of his offending.
10:40
Speaker 1: Despite the severity of his crimes, the parole system was
10:45
Speaker 1: satisfied that Williams was a change man. The following year,
10:50
Speaker 1: the mysterious disappearance of an eighteen year old woman from
10:54
Speaker 1: her home would spark fear across the community. In the
11:07
Speaker 1: early hours of September the fifteenth, nineteen ninety one, in
11:11
Speaker 1: the quiet village of south Lyon Oakland County, Michigan, eighteen
11:16
Speaker 1: year old Cammi Villanueva was home alone whilst her older
11:20
Speaker 1: sister was out on a date.
11:24
Speaker 5: Cammi Villanueva, She's eighteen, She's bright honor student, cheerful, the
11:30
Speaker 5: whole world in front of her. Quite a shy girl,
11:34
Speaker 5: she wasn't a great party goer, and she lived with
11:37
Speaker 5: her sisters.
11:40
Speaker 2: Cammy's older sister came home and saw that Cammi was
11:45
Speaker 2: not home. She went into her room. She saw that
11:50
Speaker 2: things were basically undisturbed.
11:55
Speaker 5: The bedroom is deserted, but everything that Cammi left as
11:58
Speaker 5: all just exactly as it was. In fact, she's astounded
12:04
Speaker 5: is there in Hana solitaire? She was playing purse denim jacket,
12:10
Speaker 5: which she never went out without. It's as if she's
12:14
Speaker 5: disappeared into thin air.
12:16
Speaker 2: She wondered, Okay, what happened? Where is she? The following
12:20
Speaker 2: day she reported her missing to police.
12:26
Speaker 3: There was no signs of any kind of forced entry.
12:29
Speaker 3: From my conversations with the Oakland County Sheriff's Department detectives
12:36
Speaker 3: that worked that part of the case, it was unknown
12:40
Speaker 3: why she was no longer home.
12:44
Speaker 2: Nobody knew what happened to her. She was a missing
12:46
Speaker 2: person case. They didn't know if she had been killed,
12:49
Speaker 2: or if she ran away, or what happened.
12:53
Speaker 1: Just as police were getting to grips with Cammie's case,
12:57
Speaker 1: two weeks later, they received another call from the concerned
13:01
Speaker 1: parents of two teenage girls, sixteen year old Michelle and
13:06
Speaker 1: fourteen year old Melissa Urbin.
13:10
Speaker 5: Melissa and Michelle Erbin had a perfectly normal sister's relationship,
13:15
Speaker 5: partly wonderful friendship, partly hating each other. It was a
13:19
Speaker 5: typical sisterly bond.
13:23
Speaker 2: They lived in a rural area of Michigan, near the
13:26
Speaker 2: town of Heartland, which is about an hour northwest of Detroit.
13:33
Speaker 5: They have nothing particular to worry about, and it's a
13:36
Speaker 5: perfectly ordinary day.
13:39
Speaker 1: On September twenty ninth, nineteen ninety one, after a Sunday
13:44
Speaker 1: dinner with the family, the two girls set off on
13:47
Speaker 1: an evening walk.
13:51
Speaker 3: The morning after they had gone for their walk, when
13:55
Speaker 3: the father noticed they weren't home, he said, we need
13:59
Speaker 3: to call the police. A young trooper was sent to
14:05
Speaker 3: make contact with the parents and it was learned from
14:09
Speaker 3: them that they did not return home the night before.
14:14
Speaker 5: The police retraced the steps the sisters had taken on
14:17
Speaker 5: their walks and found no trace of them. They also
14:21
Speaker 5: began to interview the local community to find out the background,
14:25
Speaker 5: but nothing led them to what had happened to the sisters.
14:31
Speaker 3: The information we got in contacting friends and family members
14:36
Speaker 3: was that they did not know anything about it. They
14:39
Speaker 3: had not seen the girls, had not heard from them.
14:42
Speaker 3: They were concerned. They did not understand why the girls
14:47
Speaker 3: would have been gone for so long.
14:53
Speaker 1: Although these contacts didn't provide an explanation for Michelle and
14:57
Speaker 1: Melissa's disappearance, they did reveal this wasn't the first time
15:01
Speaker 1: the girls had gone missing.
15:04
Speaker 3: A young trooper did a very good background finding that
15:08
Speaker 3: they had at one point run away for a weekend
15:12
Speaker 3: before returning home. With any missing person report. We always
15:18
Speaker 3: expect the worst, but because of the past history where
15:24
Speaker 3: the girls had been missing voluntarily, it wasn't until several
15:31
Speaker 3: days later, perhaps a week or two actually, before the
15:35
Speaker 3: concern became greater. They had never been gone this long,
15:40
Speaker 3: they had left behind items that they would not have
15:44
Speaker 3: left behind before.
15:47
Speaker 2: They were reported as missing, and then the family struggled
15:51
Speaker 2: for months not knowing what happened to those girls.
15:57
Speaker 1: With no leads and concern mounting for the whereabouts of
16:01
Speaker 1: Michelle and Melissa, police brought in Michigan State profiler David
16:05
Speaker 1: Mindsey to help with their investigation.
16:11
Speaker 6: First thing I did was make sure that I go
16:13
Speaker 6: meet with detectives, but I want to know the things
16:17
Speaker 6: that weren't in the report were bothered them about their case,
16:21
Speaker 6: was troubling them. We focus on the victimology. These are
16:26
Speaker 6: very low risk victims who know are missing, something terrible
16:31
Speaker 6: likely happened to them, and to help them develop media
16:35
Speaker 6: releases that will hopefully get the good tips to look
16:38
Speaker 6: more into the background.
16:41
Speaker 1: A closer look at the Milford area revealed that cases
16:44
Speaker 1: of female missing persons were rather uncommon, highlighting chilling similarities
16:50
Speaker 1: between the urban sistors and cami Via Nueva.
16:55
Speaker 5: It must have begun to strike the authorities that the
17:00
Speaker 5: disappearance of three high school girls within a period of
17:05
Speaker 5: literally three weeks was quite unusual.
17:10
Speaker 3: They lived in a very rural area, very sparsely populated.
17:15
Speaker 5: Crime was.
17:18
Speaker 3: Almost non existent up there.
17:21
Speaker 6: All of a sudden, we had something pop up here
17:24
Speaker 6: in Oakland County, primarily in fact, in the Milford area,
17:28
Speaker 6: And I grew up there, so I knew that the
17:30
Speaker 6: area did not have a whole lot of crime, particularly
17:33
Speaker 6: involving missing teenage girls. Something came into this area and
17:41
Speaker 6: likely was connected to all of these victims, and we
17:43
Speaker 6: needed to find out who that was.
17:48
Speaker 1: Just one year before the teenagers went missing from Oakland County,
17:53
Speaker 1: thirty seven year old Leslie Allen Williams had been granted
17:57
Speaker 1: early release from prison after serving just six years of
18:01
Speaker 1: a maximum thirty year sentence for attempted kidnapping and sexual assault.
18:08
Speaker 2: He was released very quickly in nineteen ninety. He was
18:13
Speaker 2: surprised to be parolled that early.
18:17
Speaker 3: His first residence was in Wayne County, Michigan. The parole
18:23
Speaker 3: officer that he saw there said that Williams complied with
18:27
Speaker 3: everything that was required of him.
18:29
Speaker 2: He was checking off the boxes. He was working a job,
18:32
Speaker 2: and then he was providing proof that he was working
18:35
Speaker 2: a job. He was showing them his check stobs. He
18:38
Speaker 2: was reporting in regularly.
18:41
Speaker 3: He was engaged in counseling. He moved to Oakland County,
18:48
Speaker 3: his parole agent changed, so once again new eyes looking
18:54
Speaker 3: at him. But he was still complying with the requirements
18:58
Speaker 3: that the parole board had set for.
19:02
Speaker 1: His.
19:02
Speaker 2: Parole officers over the years considered him what they called
19:06
Speaker 2: a model parole. He seemed to be doing everything that
19:10
Speaker 2: he was expected to do.
19:13
Speaker 5: He caused no trouble, he attracted no attention. In fact,
19:17
Speaker 5: I think one parole officer said that he was ideal
19:20
Speaker 5: to deal with.
19:22
Speaker 1: As Williams was settling into a new life seemingly on
19:26
Speaker 1: the straight and narrow, Oakland County Police was still baffled
19:30
Speaker 1: as to the whereabouts of eighteen year old cami Via
19:33
Speaker 1: Nueva and teenage sisters Michelle and Melissa Urbin. But before
19:39
Speaker 1: police could begin to connect the dots, another teenage girl
19:44
Speaker 1: would vanish into thin air. On January the fourth, nineteen
19:57
Speaker 1: ninety two, fifteen year old schoolgirl Cynthia Jones, was hanging
20:02
Speaker 1: out with her sixteen year old boyfriend in his car
20:05
Speaker 1: at Central Park in Milford.
20:09
Speaker 5: Cindy was an archetypal high school girl. She was an
20:13
Speaker 5: honor student. She was a cheerleader, She was cheerful, She
20:16
Speaker 5: was very much happy with her boyfriend.
20:20
Speaker 2: They were in the car, and while they were sitting
20:23
Speaker 2: there in the car, this man ran up to them
20:26
Speaker 2: in a sche house and tells them he has to
20:30
Speaker 2: have the car. Get out of the car. I need
20:32
Speaker 2: the car. He gives them a story that he just
20:35
Speaker 2: robbed a place, and so he forces them out of
20:38
Speaker 2: the car.
20:40
Speaker 5: You can imagine they were very frightened, and he marches
20:44
Speaker 5: the couple into a nearby wooded area, where it proceeds
20:48
Speaker 5: to tie up the boyfriend to one of the trees.
20:53
Speaker 5: The boyfriend tries to escape, but the man with a
20:57
Speaker 5: sche mask ushes Cindy into a wood not far away,
21:03
Speaker 5: and it's the last the boyfriend ever sees.
21:08
Speaker 1: Just minutes later, the boyfriend freed himself from his restraints
21:12
Speaker 1: and called the police. They searched the entire park, but
21:17
Speaker 1: despite their best efforts, they were unable to find any
21:21
Speaker 1: clues to Cynthia's whereabouts nor the identity of her abductor.
21:29
Speaker 2: Her boyfriend was not able to identify him because his
21:32
Speaker 2: identity was obscured, but still at least her boyfriend was
21:36
Speaker 2: able to report this to police, so they knew that
21:39
Speaker 2: Cindy had been abducted, but the.
21:43
Speaker 1: Lack of details on the assailant meant the police were
21:47
Speaker 1: struggling to find the teenage couple's attacker.
21:51
Speaker 4: Predators are really difficult to identify and to capture, and
21:57
Speaker 4: that there's quite a few reasons for that, the biggest
22:00
Speaker 4: one obviously being that they rarely have any relationship to
22:06
Speaker 4: the person that they've assaulted, nothing that links them in
22:11
Speaker 4: any way. Police have to start from a position of
22:16
Speaker 4: thirty thousand people that live in this area.
22:18
Speaker 2: It could be any one of them.
22:19
Speaker 4: They have to go on other motivations forms of evidence
22:25
Speaker 4: identifying suspects.
22:28
Speaker 1: As a result, police had to consider one potential suspect.
22:34
Speaker 3: Because of the odd circumstances, the boyfriend. He was thought
22:39
Speaker 3: to be a suspect for the longest time.
22:45
Speaker 5: Was he trying to cover up the fact that she'd
22:47
Speaker 5: run away? Was he trying to cover up even worse,
22:50
Speaker 5: that he'd killed her and hidden her body.
22:53
Speaker 1: Police could find absolutely no evidence to suggest Cynthia's boyfriend
22:58
Speaker 1: was involved in her disc appearance, and he was officially
23:02
Speaker 1: ruled out as a suspect six days later. The sixteen
23:06
Speaker 1: year old boyfriend was traumatized by this experience. How could
23:11
Speaker 1: he not have been He's watched the girl he has
23:13
Speaker 1: fallen in love with, being escorted away by a masked man,
23:17
Speaker 1: He's left tied to a tree, and then he's suspected
23:19
Speaker 1: of Cindy's abduction. It is something that would be very,
23:23
Speaker 1: very difficult to recover from. With their only suspect eliminated
23:29
Speaker 1: from the inquiry, police were no closer to finding Cynthia's
23:33
Speaker 1: true kidnapper.
23:38
Speaker 2: Four missing girls that turn up in the span of
23:41
Speaker 2: a few months from September nineteen ninety one to January
23:44
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two, and you have three different police departments
23:49
Speaker 2: that are investigating their disappearance.
23:53
Speaker 3: There were cross jurisdictional boundaries where the communication wasn't always there.
24:00
Speaker 3: This was at a time before there were yellow alerts,
24:03
Speaker 3: which in the United States and in Michigan, when there
24:08
Speaker 3: are missing juveniles, there are alerts set out over cell
24:13
Speaker 3: phones telling people watch for these people. They're missing, they
24:18
Speaker 3: may be endangered, but there was no indication at that
24:21
Speaker 3: time that they were connected.
24:25
Speaker 1: The luck of the police would soon change over Four
24:33
Speaker 1: months later, on May twenty fourth, nineteen ninety two, Oakland
24:38
Speaker 1: County's Deputy sheriff was taking a traffic accident report in
24:42
Speaker 1: Springfield Township when a panic man approached and told him
24:47
Speaker 1: about an attack that was happening in a nearby cemetery.
24:51
Speaker 2: He's there to visit his dad's grave. He pulls up
24:55
Speaker 2: in his car and there's another vehicle sitting there in
24:58
Speaker 2: the way, blocking his path, and one of the doors
25:01
Speaker 2: of the car is open, but the car is empty.
25:05
Speaker 2: He looks off in the distance and he sees this
25:07
Speaker 2: man that appears to be assaulting this woman, and meanwhile,
25:14
Speaker 2: this man looks over and sees this guy notice him,
25:18
Speaker 2: and that's when he says, leave us alone, we're just
25:21
Speaker 2: having sex. This witness was knowing that was not the case.
25:27
Speaker 2: They were both fully clothed for one thing, and this
25:30
Speaker 2: did not appear to be a sexual situation. This seemed
25:32
Speaker 2: to be a violent assault.
25:35
Speaker 5: The woman is clearly being attacked, and the passerby goes
25:41
Speaker 5: and finds a traffic policeman who's not far away. The
25:45
Speaker 5: policeman comes back.
25:47
Speaker 2: He was speeding out of the cemetery as the cop
25:50
Speaker 2: was coming in, and the cop realize, okay, that's the guy,
25:52
Speaker 2: and chased him. And this started a little bit of
25:56
Speaker 2: a harrowing car chase that was also a footchase because
26:01
Speaker 2: at one point this man wrecked his car and got
26:04
Speaker 2: out on foot and tried to get away.
26:07
Speaker 1: After an intense chase, police were able to capture their assailants,
26:12
Speaker 1: and they were shocked to learn that this wasn't their
26:15
Speaker 1: suspect's first time in handcuffs. He revealed himself as thirty
26:20
Speaker 1: eight year old seasoned in criminal Leslie Allen Williams.
26:25
Speaker 5: Williams's slightly shamefaced, but nevertheless is arrested on suspicion of
26:32
Speaker 5: the attack on the woman in the cemetery, but then
26:35
Speaker 5: announces to the officer that actually the woman he was
26:39
Speaker 5: attacking is in the boot of his car and she
26:42
Speaker 5: won't be able to breathe the very long as she's
26:44
Speaker 5: in there.
26:47
Speaker 3: She was near death, I believe, because she was being
26:51
Speaker 3: affixiated by some sort of device around her neck.
26:56
Speaker 2: Williams had placed her in the trunk, reportedly with one
26:59
Speaker 2: of his plastic ties that he liked to use around
27:03
Speaker 2: her nag, and so the police officer was able to
27:06
Speaker 2: get into the trunk and get to her right before
27:11
Speaker 2: anything terrible happened and rescue her.
27:18
Speaker 1: The police officer reached the woman just in time, and
27:21
Speaker 1: she was quickly transported to hospital where she made a
27:25
Speaker 1: full recovery. With the victims safe, the focus shifted to
27:31
Speaker 1: questioning her attacker.
27:33
Speaker 2: Williams was arrested taken into police custody, and as they
27:39
Speaker 2: were talking to him, he really wasn't giving much up.
27:44
Speaker 3: Because of looking at his criminal history, and passed that
27:51
Speaker 3: further investigation was done. There was a search warrant that
27:56
Speaker 3: was executed at his home.
28:00
Speaker 2: They found lastic zip ties, They found the shovel in
28:03
Speaker 2: his car too, so they knew there was something more
28:06
Speaker 2: to this guy than just trying to attack somebody in
28:09
Speaker 2: a cemetery. And when they searched his house, they found
28:15
Speaker 2: a ring.
28:17
Speaker 1: That ring belonged to none other than the missing eighteen
28:21
Speaker 1: year old Cami Villanueva. Suspecting Williams maybe involved in Cammi's disappearance,
28:29
Speaker 1: they made contact with his ex girlfriend to find out
28:32
Speaker 1: more about the man they had in custody, and what
28:37
Speaker 1: she had to say filled them with dread.
28:41
Speaker 2: She told police how she had during their relationship, given
28:45
Speaker 2: Williams a kitten to take care of, and Williams told
28:49
Speaker 2: her later that he killed the kitten for whatever reason,
28:52
Speaker 2: who knows, But he also buried the kitten and so
28:56
Speaker 2: police were very interested.
28:58
Speaker 1: Williams Is ex girl friend gave police the location of
29:02
Speaker 1: the burial site, and on a hunch that Williams might
29:05
Speaker 1: have revisited a place he already knew, they headed straight
29:09
Speaker 1: for it.
29:11
Speaker 2: They started digging, and they realized that they were about
29:15
Speaker 2: to discover Cammi Vianueva.
29:21
Speaker 1: Once presented with the overwhelming evidence, Williams had no choice
29:26
Speaker 1: but to confess to Cammi's murder.
29:30
Speaker 2: And what he.
29:30
Speaker 1: Revealed next added a disturbing twist.
29:35
Speaker 5: When he was on parole from prison in nineteen ninety,
29:39
Speaker 5: he worked in a gas station and another girl who
29:43
Speaker 5: worked in a gas station had a sister called Cami Villanueva.
29:50
Speaker 2: Williams would actually see Cammy coming to the gas station
29:54
Speaker 2: where he worked. He was aware of where they lived
29:57
Speaker 2: and what their habits were.
30:00
Speaker 5: Absolutely Williams's cup of tea, and so when he gets
30:04
Speaker 5: out of jail, one of the first people he targets
30:08
Speaker 5: is carry Villanueva.
30:12
Speaker 2: Cammy was home alone. She was in her bedroom. She
30:16
Speaker 2: was sitting there playing solitaire with the deck of cards.
30:20
Speaker 1: Williams told investigators that after donning a ski mask in
30:25
Speaker 1: a bid to disguise himself, he approached the home of
30:28
Speaker 1: Cami Villanueva armed with a pocket knife.
30:33
Speaker 2: He realized that her door was unlocked. He came inside,
30:39
Speaker 2: He abducted her. He forced her into his car. He
30:44
Speaker 2: took her to another location.
30:48
Speaker 5: Williams takes her to a cemetery not very far away,
30:52
Speaker 5: where he proceeds to rape her and to killer.
30:57
Speaker 6: His method was strangulation, which is very common killers because
31:00
Speaker 6: it's up close and personal. You get an opportunity to
31:05
Speaker 6: interact with your victim and control their life. That's the
31:08
Speaker 6: ultimate exercise of power, and I think that that's what
31:12
Speaker 6: he did.
31:14
Speaker 3: He actually dug a shallow grave in a field and
31:19
Speaker 3: buried her, only to revisit her months later.
31:25
Speaker 2: There were reports that Williams had dug up and had
31:30
Speaker 2: sex with the body. So there's some kind of necrophilia
31:33
Speaker 2: going on here.
31:36
Speaker 4: That is not unheard of.
31:38
Speaker 2: With the killers.
31:39
Speaker 4: They will if they can revisit a body again to
31:45
Speaker 4: get that emotional moment, relive it, maybe reassault the victim.
31:55
Speaker 6: How could somebody come back and the smell is terrible
31:58
Speaker 6: and the condition of the body is bad. How could
32:00
Speaker 6: they do that? But we're talking about people who are
32:04
Speaker 6: wired differently. Then going back allows him to relive that
32:07
Speaker 6: whole event over and over again.
32:11
Speaker 1: Leslie Allan Williams had confessed to the murder of Cami Vanuava,
32:17
Speaker 1: and he hadn't finished yet. As he continued to talk,
32:22
Speaker 1: the thirty eight year old would reveal even more disturbing
32:25
Speaker 1: information that would lead detectives horrified. On the evening of
32:39
Speaker 1: May the twenty seventh, nineteen ninety two, in the Oakland
32:43
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's office, thirty eight year old Leslie Allan Williams
32:48
Speaker 1: had confessed to raping and killing eighteen year old Cammi
32:52
Speaker 1: Vanuava eight months earlier. What began as a single admission
32:58
Speaker 1: soon snowballed into a cascade of confessions.
33:04
Speaker 3: When Williams was interviewed by the Sheriff's deputies and began
33:08
Speaker 3: telling about Cammy, he also admitted to the kidnapping and
33:13
Speaker 3: murder of the Urban Sisters.
33:17
Speaker 1: The two teenage sisters, sixteen year old Michelle and fourteen
33:21
Speaker 1: year old Melissa Urbin, had gone missing on September the
33:25
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, nineteen ninety one, after going out for a walk.
33:31
Speaker 1: It had been a cold case for eight months until now.
33:36
Speaker 3: At that point, the State Police in Brighton was contacted.
33:40
Speaker 3: Our detective Bureau was activated, were able to take Williams
33:45
Speaker 3: into our custody and interview him.
33:50
Speaker 1: Williams admitted he'd been watching the Urban Sisters for several days.
33:56
Speaker 3: The reason he was up in that area stalking people
34:00
Speaker 3: was because he was court ordered to see a psychotherapist
34:06
Speaker 3: who was just miles away from where the Urban Sisters lived.
34:14
Speaker 2: They went out for a walk near their home in
34:17
Speaker 2: that remote area, and Williams realized this. He saw them
34:22
Speaker 2: and he hid in some bushes and he waited for
34:25
Speaker 2: them to come up on him, and he jumped.
34:28
Speaker 3: Out and with a small pocket knife, he threatened the girls,
34:34
Speaker 3: grabbing one of them. The other girl submitted to his demands,
34:40
Speaker 3: fearing for her sister.
34:44
Speaker 5: And what's more, had gone to the lengths of taking
34:46
Speaker 5: photographs of them, which he'd kept to souvenirs, which again
34:49
Speaker 5: the police found in their search of his house.
34:53
Speaker 6: Seeking a trophy really is about a conquest. You hear
34:57
Speaker 6: the term souvenir and trophy. A sou means that we
35:00
Speaker 6: were at someplace. A trophy means that we won, we
35:04
Speaker 6: conquered something, and so taking those things allows him to
35:08
Speaker 6: relive those events over and over again.
35:12
Speaker 3: He first tried to completely incapacitate them with starter fluid
35:18
Speaker 3: much like an ether, to put them to sleep, and
35:22
Speaker 3: suffocated them.
35:27
Speaker 1: After killing the two girls, Williams told detectives that he
35:31
Speaker 1: drove four miles to the outskirts of Fenton, Michigan, where
35:35
Speaker 1: he callously buried the teenage sisters, once again digging a
35:40
Speaker 1: shallow grave in a nearby cemetery.
35:44
Speaker 4: He covered the urban sistors with blankets, and that quite
35:49
Speaker 4: possibly was to protect the bodies from the earth and
35:54
Speaker 4: everything around them, to perhaps keep them in a better
35:58
Speaker 4: state for a longer time. He didn't bury them deep
36:04
Speaker 4: enough that he couldn't get access to them.
36:09
Speaker 1: Williams also revealed his cruel final words to the terrified
36:14
Speaker 1: young sisters.
36:17
Speaker 2: He told them that he would let them go. He
36:20
Speaker 2: told them that if they just did what he said,
36:24
Speaker 2: they'd be okay. He'd release them. And I think that
36:27
Speaker 2: makes it way worse.
36:30
Speaker 1: In police custody, Williams had confessed to three murders, but
36:35
Speaker 1: he didn't stop there. Detectives were about to discover one
36:39
Speaker 1: final victim, fifteen year old schoolgirl Cynthia Jones, who was
36:44
Speaker 1: abducted whilst on a date with her boyfriend in Central
36:49
Speaker 1: Park in Milford.
36:51
Speaker 2: He took Cindy in his car, and like with the
36:55
Speaker 2: other victims, he raped her. He did change Emma a
37:00
Speaker 2: little bit though he had strangled Cammy Vianueva. He had
37:06
Speaker 2: suffocated the two girls, but then with Cynthia Jones, he
37:10
Speaker 2: actually stabbed her in the chest with his knife and
37:15
Speaker 2: buried her in a shallow grave.
37:18
Speaker 4: Now that could be many reasons for that. It could
37:22
Speaker 4: be that she go out of his control. It could
37:26
Speaker 4: be that he needed to do it very quickly and efficiently,
37:31
Speaker 4: and to strangle someone takes longer potentially than stopping someone.
37:39
Speaker 1: After confessing to the murders of the four teenagers, Williams
37:43
Speaker 1: made one final deal with police.
37:47
Speaker 2: When they were able to obtain confessions from Williams, he
37:52
Speaker 2: agreed to take them to where the other girls. The
37:55
Speaker 2: three other girls were buried, so that was up to
37:57
Speaker 2: the cemetery in Fenton where the Urban girls were buried,
38:00
Speaker 2: and then that was to the other part of Buno
38:03
Speaker 2: Road where Cindy Jones was buried.
38:07
Speaker 4: I think William's confessing was for his own benefit and
38:11
Speaker 4: absolutely nobody else's benefit whatsoever. If he says, look, I
38:15
Speaker 4: can help you find more bodies and see what a
38:18
Speaker 4: great guy I am and see how sincere I am,
38:23
Speaker 4: because this might help with him making arguments that he
38:27
Speaker 4: wants to change or that he feels remorse or guilt
38:31
Speaker 4: or shame.
38:33
Speaker 1: With an overwhelming amount of evidence in front of him,
38:37
Speaker 1: including photographs of the Urban sisters, Cammi via Nava's ring,
38:42
Speaker 1: and the bodies, Williams decided to plead guilty to all
38:46
Speaker 1: four murders. At the Oakland County Court on June third,
38:50
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two.
38:53
Speaker 2: He said something to the effect that he just wanted
38:56
Speaker 2: to save the taxpayers the expense and save everybody the
38:59
Speaker 2: great save the victim family members the grief of going
39:03
Speaker 2: through a trial. So it was pretty quick that he
39:06
Speaker 2: was sentenced. He was arrested in May nineteen ninety two,
39:09
Speaker 2: and he was sentenced to everything in July nineteen ninety
39:12
Speaker 2: two without a trial.
39:16
Speaker 3: In Michigan, the punishment for first degree murder capital murder
39:21
Speaker 3: is mandatory life in prison without parole. Kidnapping in Michigan
39:27
Speaker 3: also carries a life sentence.
39:32
Speaker 1: On July the seventh, nineteen ninety two, Williams was sentenced
39:36
Speaker 1: to life without parole for the murder of Cynthia Jones.
39:40
Speaker 1: Later that day, he was given four consecutive life terms
39:44
Speaker 1: for kidnapping, attempted murder, and the attempted rape of the
39:48
Speaker 1: woman at the Springfield Township Cemetery. Williams was also sentenced
39:54
Speaker 1: to life for Cammis murder on September the twenty fourth,
39:58
Speaker 1: and for the Urban Sisters murder on October the fifth.
40:04
Speaker 1: Cindy's mother, who was horrified by the fact that her
40:08
Speaker 1: daughter had been killed by a man who'd been let
40:12
Speaker 1: out of prison when he shouldn't have been. Unfortunately, it's
40:16
Speaker 1: a plea we hear so often from the victims of crime,
40:20
Speaker 1: particularly violent murder.
40:23
Speaker 3: I think Leslie Alian Williams represents the failure of that
40:25
Speaker 3: the entire criminal justice system, particularly the parole system.
40:29
Speaker 4: Leslie Alian Williams never.
40:30
Speaker 1: Should have been on the street, and there's four young
40:33
Speaker 1: ladies that are dead because of that. When he was
40:37
Speaker 1: serving a thirty year sentence back in nineteen eighty three
40:41
Speaker 1: for kidnap and sexual assault, Williams's prison psychiatrist wrote in
40:46
Speaker 1: her report that she felt he was making good progress
40:50
Speaker 1: and was eligible for rehabilitation.
40:55
Speaker 3: The year that Williams was released from prison and pra
40:58
Speaker 3: aw there I believe eleven thousand people in Michigan that
41:05
Speaker 3: went before the parole board. The parole Board released almost
41:10
Speaker 3: nine thousand of those people on parole. Subsequent to William's
41:16
Speaker 3: convictions and sentencing. The parents of Michelle and Melissa Urban
41:23
Speaker 3: were instrumental in making changes to the way the parole
41:30
Speaker 3: board in Michigan reviews people and releases people.
41:36
Speaker 2: There was legislation enacted later in nineteen ninety two as
41:40
Speaker 2: I understand, to reform Michigan's parole system. So I guess
41:44
Speaker 2: you could say that that's something that hopefully is good
41:47
Speaker 2: that has come out of the case.
41:50
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just the families that were impacted by
41:53
Speaker 1: these tragic killings.
41:56
Speaker 6: Now, I'll tell you, you know, people who work on
41:59
Speaker 6: a serial case case never want to do that again.
42:03
Speaker 6: It is so physically and emotionally draining that it affects
42:07
Speaker 6: their family life because they're spending more time on the case.
42:11
Speaker 6: And you know, there's a lot of pressure from the media,
42:13
Speaker 6: from the public, from you know, your boss to solve
42:16
Speaker 6: these cases. And while you do feel good that we
42:19
Speaker 6: caught the guy, is something that they really don't want
42:22
Speaker 6: to have to go through again.
42:26
Speaker 3: My department, the Michigan State Police, have counselors and psychologists
42:31
Speaker 3: on staff because they know of the toll that investigations
42:37
Speaker 3: can have. I personally feel there is no such thing
42:41
Speaker 3: as justice in a case like this. The girls will
42:45
Speaker 3: never be brought back. The only thing we have is
42:50
Speaker 3: the knowledge that Williams will never be able to do
42:53
Speaker 3: this again, and so that the other young women out
42:57
Speaker 3: there will be safe.
43:05
Speaker 1: The decision to release Leslie Allan Williams early proved to
43:09
Speaker 1: be catastrophic. He was a dangerous season criminal whose frequent
43:14
Speaker 1: appearances in and out of prison didn't deter him from
43:18
Speaker 1: taking the lives of Camivi and Waiver, sisters Michelle and
43:22
Speaker 1: Melissa Erbin, and fifteen year old Cynthia Jones in the
43:26
Speaker 1: space of just nine months. This undoubtedly makes Leslie Allan
43:31
Speaker 1: Williams one of the world's most evil killers.