It was 5 1/2 years ago when Prince George’s detectives put handcuffs on Antonio Williams and walked him out of an interview room to take him to jail.
That's when the then-25-year old admitted to police that he stabbed to death his 6-year-old sister, Nadira Withers, along with their 6 and 9-year-old cousins, Ariana Decree and Ajayah Decree -- the three little girls he was supposed to be watching in his Clinton home while his mother worked.
He told police he did it because they were being little girls playing, making noise, waking Williams from a nap.
“The kids were running up and down the steps. He told them to go back down,” says former assistant Prince George’s State’s Attorney Jonathan Church.
So much time has passed that Church now works in Howard County. He came back to Prince George’s to finally take the case to trial. This week he told the story of the crime to a jury.
“He was angry and enraged and grabbed a knife from the kitchen, Church said.
“He went down into that bedroom and stabbed each of those kids multiple times. In fact, there were 16 stab wounds between the three of them.”
The jury took just a few hours to find Williams guilty of three counts of first degree murder Thursday. He faces life without parole.
For Nadira’s father, Kenneth, it is justice delayed, but he says, not denied.
“It’s been a long road as we all know and I’m just happy that these three innocent lives got the justice they deserve,” Withers said.
According to Church, the case took so long for a number of reasons. There has been high turnover in the office of State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy. There was a change of defense attorneys and pandemic-related delays, which created a backlog of cases. Nadira’s father says the wait has been brutal but now at least he feels some peace.