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Parole Board hears Williams' execution appeal Tuesday, Aug 5, 2008 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Condemned killer Frank Williams Jr. is not retarded and intentionally murdered the one man who was trying to help him, the victim's two sons told the state Parole Board on Monday. "My family has been through this ... for 16 years and we still live with this," an emotional Paul Spence of Bradley said, urging the seven-member board to deny the executive clemency request of Williams, who is scheduled to be executed Sept. 9 in the October 1992 slaying of Bradley farmer Clyde Spence. Paul Spence, his younger brother, David, along with a friend of the family addressed the board Monday afternoon, speaking of their love and respect for Clyde Spence. About 30 other family members also attended the 90-minute meeting. At a hearing earlier Monday at the state Department of Correction's Varner Unit, Williams asked the board to recommend leniency. Williams said he "just went blank" before he shot and killed Clyde Spence, acknowledging that he had been smoking marijuana and drinking shortly before the shooting. Williams said he wished Spence's family could "move on." Parole Board Chairman Leroy Brownlee said after the nearly 90-minute afternoon hearing the board would consider the arguments and make a recommendation to Gov. Mike Beebe. A board spokesman said the recommendation would probably come within a week. Clyde Spence was gunned down when he answered the front door to his home on the night of Oct. 17, 1992. On a state prison work-release program at the time and employed at the Spence farm at the time, Williams had recently been fired for damaging a tractor and confronted the victim. Lafayette County Prosecutor Brent Haltom testified during Monday's afternoon hearing that Clyde Spence picked up a handgun when he heard knocking on his front door late at night. He put the gun down after Williams identified himself, the prosecutor said. Williams was convicted of capitol murder and sentenced to death in 1993. During the early hearing Monday, California psychologist Ricardo Weinstein testified he has diagnosed Williams as having mental disabilities after reviewing records and interviewing family members. Williams, who grew up in Bradley and lived not far from the Spence's farm, was an acquaintance of the Spence boys and had, for most of his life, worked for their father on the farm. It was Clyde Spence who worked to get Williams into the work-release program, Haltom said. "I recollect Frank being a very capable young man," Kelly Kelner of Bradley told the board in response to a question about whether he ever thought Williams was retarded. "We're talking about the man Clyde wanted to be his farm manager." During the afternoon hearing, both David and Paul Spence discussed their father's fondness for Williams and how he was grooming him to take a leadership role on the farm. Clyde Spence "was big hearted, generous and he'd help anybody," David Spence said, adding his father "needed someone to step up and he though Frank was the one." Haltom urged the board to deny Williams clemency request, saying the defendant was given two mental evaluations before his 1993 trial and neither concluded he was mentally retarded. ------- The Associated Press contributed to this report |
