Double-murder case in Gordon will long be remembered

Published 10:57 am Tuesday, October 22, 2024

IRWINTON, Ga. — Even though Jordan Kyle Lemaster is now a convicted murderer, the heinous crimes he committed when he stabbed to death Ricky Howard Williams Sr. and his wife Pamela Ann Williams at their home in Gordon 2 ½ years ago will long be remembered.

The brutal slayings are two of the worst such killings in Wilkinson County history.

The victims were Lemaster’s uncle and aunt. They had offered to take him and his mother, Carla Ramsey, into their home three months before they were attacked by Lemaster, who stabbed them both repeatedly with a knife.

A motive for the killings was never given during the three-day trial that ended late last Wednesday afternoon.  A jury of eight men and four women deliberated less than a half hour before they found Lemaster guilty of killing the beloved elderly couple.

Afterward, Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Bradley, who presided over the trial in Wilkinson County Superior Court in Irwinton, sentenced the former Florida and North Carolina resident to two consecutive life terms in prison plus 40 years.

During his trial, Lemaster was represented by court-appointed attorney Jess Clifton, who is with the Georgia Public Defender East Middle Region Office.

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The double-murder case, meanwhile, was jointly prosecuted by Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III and Senior Assistant District Attorney Brent Cochran. The prosecution team was assisted by Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Amanda Hammock, who is assigned to the GBI Region 6 Office in Milledgeville.

Clifton, who had reserved the right to make opening statements when the trial began last Monday afternoon, provided some brief comments to jurors before Barksdale began his closing arguments.

“Good afternoon. It’s a been a long three days,” Clifton said.

He summarized some of the things that had been done up to that point.

“And obviously, there is a whole bunch of stuff everywhere, over here, I mean all the way around,” Clifton said.

Hundreds of photographs and dozens of other individual items, including the blood-soaked clothing Ricky Williams Sr. and Pamela were wearing at the time they were murdered, had earlier been admitted into evidence without objection by the defense attorney.

The evidence was spread out on the floor in front of the judge’s bench as well as two large tables and two portable clothing racks.

“Unfortunately, about 90% of it is just stuff,” Clifton said. “It’s stuff with no real value as to what happened to (the victims).”

He questioned why DNA wasn’t done on some items and why fingerprints weren’t taken here or there.

“About 99% of it, there was no DNA, and no prints either for anybody else other than my client,” Clifton said. “There has been no motive for all of this. But for these charges, you don’t need a motive. But none of this makes any sense. There was no robbery. And their son, Ricky, was there the day before this happened and he didn’t see anything wrong. Just why is my question.”

Clifton said since his client lived in the house where the murders took place, his DNA and fingerprints would logically be there.

He pointed out that no one ever identified Lemaster as being the actual person in Love’s Travel Center in Macon-Bibb County where many of the items introduced into evidence by the state were found inside the bags of a trash can outside the business by Region 6 GBI Special Agent Russel Freel.

Some of those items included the cell phones of Ricky Williams and Pamela Williams.

Clifton also pointed out to jurors that in the grand jury indictment against his client, grand jurors said the deaths were caused by knives.

“And there was a bat presented,” Clifton said. “And pictures of all kinds of stuff. But Jordan is not charged with anything to do with that bat.”

Again, the defense said the case makes no sense.

“It’s strange like weird things in this garbage bag at Love’s,” Clifton said. “Jordan’s cellphone is broke and is found in the next-door neighbor’s yard, yet he supposedly put Pam and Ricky’s cell phones in tubs of water and took them to Love’s Truck Stop and put them into a dumpster. None of that makes any sense. And why would somebody do that? This doesn’t jive. It’s just weird, all these different things at different locations.”

The evidence included several pairs of black gloves, energy drinks and black trash bags with red ties.

“There’s no way to really tie Jordan to all of this stuff other than through all this circumstantial evidence,” Clifton said.

“They have a wall and it’s made out of all this sand right here,” Clifton said. “So, when you take a deep breath and blow on it, there’s not a lot left.”

He added he thought that someone in the family would have recognized something the day before if Lemaster was planning to do something like this.

“But none of that was brought up,” Clifton said, noting a whole lot is lacking in the case.

Clifton admitted somebody committed the brutal murders of Ricky Williams Sr. and Pamela Williams, but it wasn’t Jordan Lemaster.

Barksdale followed with a much different view of what the evidence in the case found.

“You think you know somebody,” Barksdale. “They appear one way. But you just never know. You really never know a person. But no matter how they appear, you truly never know who someone is or what they are capable of.”

The district attorney told jurors he had the burden of proving everything in the grand jury indictment.

“And I don’t think there’s anybody in this room that has any doubt at all that on April 18, 2022, Miss Pam and Mr. Ricky were murdered in their house,” Barksdale said. “I don’t think anybody has any doubt about the fact that they were murdered in Wilkinson County, Ga. Their house on 123 Elm Street was turned from a safe, loving home to a blood-soaked house of horror. That’s what it was. And I don’t think anyone disagrees with that.”

Barksdale reviewed the evidence with the jury that was presented by the state during the trial.

“The State of Georgia has met its burden,” he said. “There’s no reasonable doubt as to who did this. There’s four people who lived at the house. At the time that Ricky and Pam were murdered, there were four people living at the house, Miss Pam, Mr. Ricky, and Carla (Ramsey), Pam’s sister. Now, you heard on Monday her GPS on her cell phone is putting her phone in North Georgia at 11:50 a.m. But what we know is that Mr. Ricky’s phone at 5:30 is at the gas station in Macon. Right? So, that knocks Carla completely out of contention. So, now there’s just one more person living in that house.”

The district attorney noted that the state made it a point to reiterate that credit cards, cash, checks, cellphones, guns and electronics were all found.

“This was not money motivated,” Barksdale said. “And when you talk about motive, the judge is going to tell you that the State of Georgia is going to tell you that the State of Georgia does not have to prove motive. We do not have to prove motive. I do not know why the defendant murdered his aunt and uncle. I do not know that. But the law does not require that I prove that to you.”

Not only are the cellphones of the murdered victims found in containers of water at Love’s Travel Center in Macon-Bibb County, their car’s manual also was found in the trash.

“The manual is in the trash and he’s (Lemaster) in the Sabastian, Florida in the vehicle,” Barksdale said. “After he stabs his aunt and uncle to death, he takes their driver’s licenses and just throws them away. These folks opened up their home to him and he just takes them and treats them like trash.”

Pam’s purse, blood-soaked towels along with some of his clothes were all thrown away, the prosecutor said.

“He made a mistake you see,” Barksdale said. “That phone is what led the GBI to that gas station and intermixed with that were these two murder weapons. Not only are the murder weapons at the scene wrapped up with all this other bloody evidence that you’ve seen and the baseball bat, but you know the defendant is there. He is either guilty or he is the most unlucky human being I’ve ever met in my life. Because you see, he didn’t think the GBI was going to find them. He didn’t think those phones were going to ping. He underestimated.”

A video surveillance camera at Love’s Travel Center showed Lemaster there at 6:17 a.m. walking into the business.

Lemaster had a black glove on his right hand, and was wearing black tennis shoes.

They were later found in the front area of the white Kia Sorento that Lemaster stole from his uncle and aunt.

Many other items of evidence also was found by GBI agents after they arrived in Sebastian, Fla. following the arrest of Lemaster as a murder suspect in Georgia.

The district attorney said Lemaster was the most unlucky person he’s ever known because there is a person at the gas station on April 18, 2022 wearing the exact clothing that he was caught with when he was taken into custody by a SWAT Unit from the Sebastian Police Department.

The murder weapons were found just 200 yards away.

Once the jurors were charged by the judge as to the charges they could possibly convict on, they retired to the jury room and chose a foreperson.

After a mound of evidence was removed from the courtroom and taken into the jury room for jurors to view for themselves, they deliberated only 27 minutes before they returned guilty verdicts against Lemaster on on all six counts.