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Mayor Terrill Hill
Palatka lawyer and Mayor Terrill Hill responded to an Associated Press story detailing a plot by white supremacists, who had been or were at the time, employees of the state prison system to kill a Black Palatka man.
The story details how a fight with a prison guard, Thomas Driver, at Lake Butler’s Reception and Medical Center in 2013 led to a former Florida Department of Corrections guards affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan hatching a plan to murder Williams, who was an inmate at the prison.
The group, including Driver, Charles Newcomb and David Moran, was in discussions with an FBI informant to carry out the murder. Moran and Driver were employees of the Department of Corrections at the time, and Newcomb had experience as a prison guard.
They went to Williams’ Palatka neighborhood in 2015 but were deterred by local, state and federal law enforcement near his driveway. A few weeks later, the informant convinced the conspirators he killed Williams by showing a photo the FBI staged of Williams’ “dead” body, and they confessed.
Driver is due to be released from prison in a year, while Newcomb and Moran in 2017 received 12-year sentences on conspiracy to commit murder charges.
Hill said Williams is living in fear and the plotters took a sense of security from him by using his love of fishing against him and attempting to making the murder look like a medical accident.
“Every day you function, you have to look over your shoulder to make sure nobody is coming to finish the job,” Hill said. “That’s no way anybody should have to live their life anywhere in the world.”
Hill said the AP story showed a need for better employee screening in America’s prison systems and law enforcement agencies.
“I was glad that America gets to see exactly what goes inside the prison system,” Hill said. “It’s a nightmare, not just for my client.”
Calling the plot a travesty of justice, Hill said inmates have enough to deal with besides authority figures who are a part of hate groups. Hill noted Williams is still on probation for the battery on a law enforcement officer charge he received as a result of the people who also wanted to kill him.
“There has to be a better way of looking for what the affiliations are for the individuals who pick up these positions, that are set aside to protect and serve the people and correct deviant behavior, and not to perpetuate hate and enable injustice to become the norm,” Hill said.
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