FORT WORTH — After seven hours of deliberations, a Tarrant County jury found Michele Williams guilty of murder and guilty of tampering with a firearm in the 2011 death of her husband.
Testimony showed the Keller woman had given conflicting stories to investigators, at first saying Gregory Williams had been killed by intruders and later that he had taken his own life.
Williams looked pale as she awaited her fate, but showed no reaction when the verdict was announced in the courtroom.
Before the verdict, attorneys had spent nearly two hours on closing arguments.
"The answer to the question of who shot Greg is Michele Williams, plain and simple... plain and simple," Assistant District attorney Sheila Wynn told the jury.
Defense lawyer Clay Graham had a different message. "She's not a career criminal, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "This is not something she had time to think about. She panicked."
Williams sat stone-faced Monday as her court case wrapped up. Prosecutors said it was murder, not suicide, that ended her husband's life in 2011, and a jury agreed.
Deputy Chief District Attorney Jack Strickland demonstrated to the jury Monday how difficult it would have been for Greg Williams to shoot himself, based on expert testimony that the gun may have been up to two feet away when he was shot.
The prosecution painted Williams as a liar, offering different versions of what happened over the days, weeks, months and years.
But the defense implored the jury to put their feelings aside about Williams, maintaining she was not the money-hungry murderer the prosecution painted her to be. Attorney Cody Cofer said Williams overdrafted from her bank numerous times after her husband's death, showing she had not been stockpiling his money.
In the end, the jury didn't buy the defense's case and they came back with a guilty verdict for murder.
Michele Williams faces up to life in prison. While she was acquitted of tampering with Greg Williams' corpse, she was found guilty of tampering with a firearm.
