A 67-year-old woman cried as she was sentenced to almost 19 years in prison for hiring someone to kill her fiancé so she could get a huge life insurance payout.
Victoria Williams cried in court on Thursday as she apologized to the family of the victim for killing Charles Harris III.The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said she said, “Not a day has gone by that I haven’t felt the weight of my actions.”
Williams was found guilty of working with Michael Grady, who was found guilty a few days earlier, to hire hitmen to assassinate Harris for his $250,000 life insurance policy.
According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, a jury convicted Grady, 70, guilty of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, aiding and abetting murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Williams was having money problems, so Grady came up with the idea so that both of them would get the money, according to the US attorney’s office.A news statement alleged that Grady also recruited the person or people who shot Harris in his home on Langford Drive on October 5, 2011. Grady told Williams, “I have two young shooters,” the evidence showed.”Michael Grady was at the center of this,” Assistant US Attorney Nino Przulj said on Monday.
Victoria Williams, 67, cried in court as she was given a sentence of almost 19 years in prison for planning to kill her fiancée, Charles Harris III, in October 2011.
Williams and Michael Grady hired hitmen to kill Harris (shown above in his obituary) in exchange for his $250,000 life insurance policy.
Williams and Michael Grady hired hitmen to kill Harris (shown above in his obituary) in exchange for his $250,000 life insurance policy.
Williams stated during Grady’s trial that Grady had seen Williams and Harris fight about money a year before he died and warned her, “You shouldn’t be going through that.”
The lawyer’s office said that the two planned to kill Harris after asking his insurance company about the policy for accidental death.
Williams stated during Grady’s trial that Grady informed her the plan was too far along and that it would be “bad for you” if she tried to stop it after she tried to back out twice.
Williams got $224,444 from the life insurance company after Harris died, and then he got a cashier’s check for $110,000 that was due to Grady’s wife. Williams got another $175,762 from another insurance coverage.
Williams’ testimony against Grady, in which she said he had suggested the plan to kill Harris for the accidental death policy, was taken into account when she was sentenced.
Ryan Finlen, the prosecutor, claimed that Williams’s testimony was very important to Grady’s conviction and then asked for a shorter sentence for Williams.
She was going to spend the rest of her life in prison.Finlen claimed, “Michael Grady would never have been held accountable without her help.”
Judge Audrey Fleissig agreed that Williams’s evidence had a big impact on her sentence, but she pointed out that she didn’t give it until she was arrested in 2021.
Annette Harris, Harris’ sister, told the court that the family thinks Williams should serve her whole sentence.”Victoria is not God,” Annette stated, according to the source.
Williams got a sentence of 225 months, or slightly under 19 years, in prison.
Grady will be sentenced on June 4, and he might get life in prison. The US attorney’s office said he is already serving a 226-month prison term for helping a violent narcotics enterprise on a wide scale.
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