The mother of Dominique Hurd, a 19-year-old cheerleader that was brutally killed nearly 20 years ago, says she forgives the man that murdered her daughter.
Over the past two decades, Vickie Williams has mourned the loss of her daughter Dominique in private. But last week, on the day her daughter’s murderer, Kenneth Williams, was scheduled to be executed, she broke her silence in an interview with Kark 4 News.
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Vickie Williams first stated that she still looks at family videos to remember her daughter’s “very bright light.” In time, she has come to peace with what happened to her daughter.
“I’ve had a peace beyond meaning for so many years,” the mother told Kark 4, adding,”I do forgive [Williams], oh yes, I forgive him. He is forgiven.”
Hurd was a cheerleader at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, where she was studying to be a doctor, when she was kidnapped, robbed and shot by Williams. After the attack, she was taken to the hospital, where she died from her injuries.
In 1998, Williams was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of Hurd. One month later, he escaped from the Arkansas Department of Corrections Cummins Unit and killed two more innocent people. Williams was captured 24 hours after he fled from the maximum security prison after a deadly high-speed chase, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Kenneth Williams is set to executed Thursday. One of his victims – Dominique Hurd, 19, a UAPB cheerleader killed in 1998. #ARexecutions https://t.co/Soail0zf2N
— Charmaine Nero (@CharmaineSNero) April 26, 2017
#ARexecutions https://t.co/l4LpDJii29
— Charmaine Nero (@CharmaineSNero) April 28, 2017
In 2005, Williams admitted in a handwritten letter to The Pine Bluff Commercial that he finally had an answer to his decision to murder multiple people in the southern state. Last month, The Daily Beast published an excerpt from the letter:
“When you live a sinful life away from God, anything is possible. That includes mass murder. Learn from my mistakes,” Williams wrote.
Williams was executed on April 27. Hurd’s mother did not attend.
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