Philadelphia Death-Row Survivor Christopher Williams Shot to Death at Funeral Less Than Two Years After Double Exoneration

Less than two years after being exon­er­at­ed in two dif­fer­ent cas­es, Philadelphia death-row exoneree Christopher Williams (pic­tured) has been mur­dered. Williams, who spent near­ly three decades in prison, includ­ing 25 years on death row, for sep­a­rate wrong­ful mur­der con­vic­tions, was fatal­ly shot after attend­ing the funer­al of Tyree Little, anoth­er for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed man, in North Philadelphia on December 16, 2022. 

Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors framed Williams for six mur­ders and sub­ject­ed him to four wrong­ful homi­cide pros­e­cu­tions. He was sen­tenced to death in a triple-mur­der case, received a life sen­tence in anoth­er mur­der, and was acquit­ted of two oth­ers. When he was exon­er­at­ed in the sec­ond mur­der case in February 2021 and released from prison, Williams said, ​“Never in the his­to­ry of the Pennsylvania judi­cial sys­tem has some­one been charged with six mur­ders, acquit­ted of two and now exon­er­at­ed of four.” 

Since his release, Williams had been work­ing as a car­pen­ter, try­ing to cre­ate his own con­struc­tion busi­ness that could serve as a reen­try pro­gram for for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple. The father of six, Williams pri­or­i­tized recon­nect­ing with his fam­i­ly. Christopher Hartwell, his youngest son, said, ​“Speaking of the year and eight months I had him out here, he taught me how to be a bet­ter man. He helped me be a bet­ter father myself.” 

Williams’ sis­ter, Maxine Mathis, said, ​“No mat­ter what, he was going to apply him­self to build­ing a real fam­i­ly lega­cy, some­thing he could leave behind that his chil­dren and fam­i­ly could be proud of. Like we’re not already proud of him the fact that he did what he did and stayed the course in order to win his freedom.”

Jane Roh, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, stat­ed, ​“What Chris endured as a twice-wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed exoneree is unfath­omable. And that his short-lived free­dom was marked by strug­gle, as Pennsylvania is one of 12 states in the U.S. that does not com­pen­sate the wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed, is unconscionable.”

Williams was shot once in the head when he exit­ed his car at the Mount Peace Cemetery after dri­ving in the funer­al pro­ces­sion for Little. Williams was 62 years old. No arrests have been made and no sus­pects have been identified. 

“Although we’re actu­al­ly inno­cent, not every­one believes it,” Theophalis Wilson, Williams’ co-defen­dant, who was also exon­er­at­ed, said. ​“I spent 28 years in jail for know­ing him. I have to be on guard.”

Williams, then 29 years old, and Wilson, then 18, were cap­i­tal­ly charged with the September 1989 mur­ders of three mem­bers of a Brooklyn, New York drug gang. Williams was also cap­i­tal­ly charged with the November 1989 mur­der of 19-year-old Michael Haynesworth, who was shot to death in the back seat of his car in a Philadelphia park. 

Williams was tried first for Haynesworth’s mur­der, along with a 20-year-old co-defen­dant, Troy Coulston. Both were con­vict­ed in January 1992 and sen­tenced to life in prison. He and Wilson were then tried and con­vict­ed in the triple mur­der case in August 1993. Williams was sen­tenced to death and Wilson received a life sen­tence. Prosecutors also tried Williams for two oth­er mur­ders, but he was acquit­ted in both cases. 

The charges against Williams rest­ed on the per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny of Commonwealth infor­mant James White, a con­fessed mur­der­er who tes­ti­fied pur­suant to an undis­closed deal that spared him cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion in six sep­a­rate mur­der cas­es. White lat­er recant­ed his tes­ti­mo­ny, say­ing that since-fired pros­e­cu­tor David Desiderio had coached him to false­ly impli­cate Williams. At the time of Williams’ exon­er­a­tion of the cap­i­tal charges in 2020, Pamela Cummings, then the direc­tor of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s con­vic­tion integri­ty unit, called his wrong­ful con­vic­tion ​“a per­fect storm” of injus­tice in which wit­ness­es had lied, pros­e­cu­tors had with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and pre­sent­ed false foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny, and Williams had been pro­vid­ed ineffective representation. 

Williams remained impris­oned after his first exon­er­a­tion while defense lawyers pressed the con­vic­tion integri­ty unit to review the Haynesworth case. ​“There was some cyn­i­cism in me as a human being that one indi­vid­ual could be wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed more than once,” Cummings said after Williams’ sec­ond exon­er­a­tion. But, she ulti­mate­ly acknowl­edged, ​“light­ning did strike twice.”

“It’s incred­i­bly trag­ic,” Williams’ long-time lawyer, assis­tant fed­er­al defend­er Stuart Lev said. ​“This guy went through decades in prison, 25 years on death row, for crimes that he did not commit.”

During his two years of free­dom, Williams per­se­vered through hard­ships to improve his life and strength­en his famil­ial rela­tion­ships. He shared his per­son­al strug­gles with reen­try by stat­ing, ​“What brings me hap­pi­ness is my spir­it being at peace, and right now it’s not. I feel like I am being pulled in all areas.… Out here, life is run­ning a hun­dred times faster than up in that cage and you have to stay on pace or else.” 

In a January 5, 2023 op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Williams’ friend, artist Akeil Robertson-Jowers, wrote of the fear those for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed face upon reen­try to soci­ety. ​“Many of the men and women who’ve returned to this city after incar­cer­a­tion have turned their lives around. … Many of us work to give back to the com­mu­ni­ties we once harmed. But in the bro­ken com­mu­ni­ties we left and return to, our pasts are not easily forgotten.”

“We all know that the reunions we’ve had with our fam­i­lies could be only tem­po­rary,” he wrote.

“Christopher always greet­ed me with a firm hand­shake and a kind word, and he was con­stant­ly sup­port­ive of the paint­ings that I was try­ing to per­fect. He was one of the best of us,” Robertson-Jowers said. ​“The judi­cial sys­tem was set up to pun­ish us with more pas­sion than it used to pro­tect us, but we need something different.”

Statement by the Death Penalty Information Center

Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham, whose for­mer col­leagues rep­re­sent­ed Williams in efforts to over­turn his con­vic­tions, issued the following statement: 

“Mr. Williams’ death is heartbreaking.

“When inno­cent peo­ple are final­ly freed from death row, that does not mean that their strug­gles are over. While they no longer face legal jeop­ardy from their wrong­ful con­vic­tions, they can nev­er recov­er the time they lost with their fam­i­lies or the oppor­tu­ni­ties free­dom would have pro­vid­ed. Chris, like all Pennsylvania exonerees, received no state com­pen­sa­tion for the time he was wrong­ful­ly on death row and no transition services.

“Exonerees also often face the stig­ma of pub­lic dis­be­lief in their inno­cence, a stig­ma made worse by the actions of pros­e­cu­tors in many juris­dic­tions who con­tin­ue to false­ly assert that they con­vict­ed the right per­son. The fact that Chris was false­ly accused, wrong­ful­ly charged, and wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mul­ti­ple mur­ders only made matters worse.

“Today, our thoughts are with Chris’ fam­i­ly and friends, who also were vic­tims of his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and now are vic­tim­ized by this sense­less act of vio­lence. My thoughts are also with my for­mer col­leagues in the Philadelphia and Harrisburg fed­er­al defend­er offices who fought tire­less­ly to win his freedom.

“We also remem­ber two oth­er Philadelphia death-row exonerees whose lives were cut short by what they expe­ri­enced on death row: William Nieves, whose med­ical con­di­tion that was untreat­ed while he was on death row led to his pre­ma­ture death too soon after his release, and Harold Wilson, whose post­trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der from more than a decade-and-a-half in death-row soli­tary con­fine­ment exac­er­bat­ed oth­er health prob­lems and short­ened his life.

“Too often, we for­get about exonerees once they are released from prison. It is our respon­si­bil­i­ty to do more, to pro­vide mean­ing­ful com­pen­sa­tion and re-entry ser­vices and edu­ca­tion­al and occu­pa­tion­al ser­vices. May Chris rest in peace and may we all ded­i­cate our­selves to doing bet­ter for his fellow exonerees.”