Pardons board rejects clemency for Terrance Williams

T ERRANCE WILLIAMS on Monday moved another step closer to becoming the first person executed by Pennsylvania in 13 years.

The state Board of Pardons rejected his petition for clemency, removing one of Williams' last opportunities to be spared the death penalty. The panel voted 3-2 in favor of recommending that Gov. Corbett commute Williams' sentence to life in prison without parole, but a unanimous vote was needed to move the petition forward.

Williams, 46, is scheduled to die by injection Oct. 3 for the June 1984 murder of Amos Norwood, a Mount Airy husband and father. Williams, 18 at the time, and a friend lured Norwood to a cemetery, where Williams beat him to death with a tire iron, robbed him and set his body on fire.

Williams, once the quarterback at Germantown High, was convicted after a 1986 jury trial. Since 1998, his team of federal public defenders has been trying to save his life by arguing that during his childhood and teen years, Williams was raped by a handful of male attackers. Earlier this year - for the first time - the attorneys alleged that Norwood was among those who raped Williams, including the day before the murder.

District Attorney Seth Williams has questioned Williams' claims about Norwood and said his office has contacted the victim's daughter, who still wants Williams executed for murdering her father. Norwood's widow has asked that Williams be spared.

"The defendant has a long record of manipulative and malevolent behavior which eventually led to the deaths of two men," Williams said in a statement.

Months before killing Norwood, Williams fatally stabbed another man, Herbert Hamilton, 50. Williams was sentenced to 13 1/2 to 26 years for third-degree murder in that slaying.

Williams' last chance to stay alive possibly will come on Thursday, when an evidence hearing will be held in Common Pleas Court.

Judge M. Teresa Sarmina could issue a stay of execution if the defense convinces her that the prosecution during Williams' 1986 trial withheld evidence about Norwood's alleged sexual abuse of Williams. Marc Draper, Williams' accomplice, told defense attorneys in January that prosecutors and detectives had told him to testify at trial that the murder had been motivated by a robbery. Draper alleged that he had been instructed not to mention the sexual relationship between Williams and Norwood.

Draper, who is serving life in prison for the murder, is expected to testify at Thursday's hearing. Also slated to testify is Andrea Foulkes, who prosecuted the case.

Williams' attorneys contend that had jurors heard about the years of sexual abuse that the teen allegedly suffered from Norwood, they may not have sentenced him to death.

"We are confident that a thorough review of the facts will make it clear that the jurors in this case did not have accurate and complete information about the crime or Terry Williams," defense attorney Shawn Nolan said.