Pendleton lives in Manassas now. Linda Lambert, another sister, moved to Culpeper. Shirley Cuesenberry, a half-sister, may live in Leesburg.
Years have passed. In May, Washington marked his 17th year in prison.
He's been in a half-dozen Virginia prisons. Last October he was moved to Keen Mountain Correctional Facility in Oakwood, where he was recently informed of Gov. James Gilmore's decision to have additional DNA testing done in the case, testing Washington's lawyers say will demonstrate his innocence.
*****
The small children of Rebecca Williams, the victim of the crime for which Washington went to prison, are now in their 20s.
Clifford Williams, husband of the victim in this case, remembers his young wife fondly. He carries a tattoo on his arm with two hearts and the names Cliff and Becky.
Williams returned from working the night shift in June 1982, to find his 19-year-old wife bleeding to death on the sidewalk in front of their apartment, surrounded by police and onlookers.
The Williams' two youngest daughters, Melinda May and Misty Michelle, were in the apartment when the crime occurred. As Becky Williams was being put on an ambulance, the oldest daughter, Melissa Marie, got off her school bus.
"We called them the M&M gang," Cliff Williams says of his daughters' alliterative names.
Cliff Williams says he turned to drugs and alcohol to fight off the pain, and ended up losing custody of his three daughters to his mother-in-law. A few years later, his mother-in-law left the Culpeper area with the girls.
Now Williams, 40, is a machine operator working in Brandy Station and living in Orange County. He recently remarried, and his new wife, Drema, talked him into trying again to locate his kids.
He has tracked them down in California and will be flying there June 30 to visit them.
Williams hasn't seen his daughters in 12 years, and now knows that he has two grandchildren, with a third on the way. When he talks about this trip, Williams' voice shifts from anger to elation. He laughs with joy repeatedly as he talks about this happy turn of events.
The Washington Post reported that Williams had written to Gov. Gilmore requesting that the new DNA testing not be done. Asked about this, Williams told the Culpeper News, "Yeah, we wrote him letters saying how we felt about it, and explained to him what it was like. . . . It felt like it was pretty much a done deal with all the other evidence and stuff like that. I'm convinced in my heart this is the man that did it without a shadow of a doubt."
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
