Jury Finds Keller "Black Widow" Guilty Of Murder
story update 6:10 p.m.
A North Texas jury has found Keller wife and mother Michele Williams guilty of murder and she now faces life in prison.
After seven hours of deliberation, the jury came back with their decisions:
Guilty of murder and guilty of tampering with a firearm.
Williams was found not guilty of tampering with evidence, her former husband Greg's body.
Williams showed no emotion during the reading of the verdicts but was emotional after.
The punishment phase of the trail begins Tuesday morning at 8:15 am.
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - The fate of the Keller "black widow" is now in the hands of the jury. Murder suspect Michele Williams is on trial for the death of her husband, Greg Williams.
"This woman killed her husband in cold blood," stated Tarrant County prosecutor Jack Strickland during closing arguments on Monday. "She shot him to death in their home, in his bed, with her daughter 10 or 12 or 14 feet away."
Strickland said that Michele Williams lied over and over, changing her story a number of times. She first told police in Keller that an intruder killed her husband. Then, she changed her story and said that her husband committed suicide.
"Greg was alive and she shot him in the head," said Strickland. "She shot him in the head at point blank range and now he's dead."
The jury began deliberations shortly before 11:00 a.m. on Monday.
The defense team told jurors that Greg Williams killed himself in October 2011, and there was no motive for murder. "She is not a career criminal, ladies and gentleman. This is not something she had time to think about," said defense attorney Clay Graham. "She panicked! She was working to protect her baby girl, Makala, in the other room."
Prosecutors said that Michele Williams killed her husband in order to collect insurance money, but Graham insisted that money had nothing to do with the death. "He brought in over $500,000 in 2010 and over $800,000 dollars in 2011," explained Graham. "That's more than double what the insurance cash out would have been, so what was her motive? They didn't prove a motive."
Michele Williams did not take the stand at any point during the trial.
If convicted, Michele Williams faces life in prison on the murder charge and 20 years in prison on the tampering charge.
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