A “soulless” killer who paid a mother $2,500 to rape and sodomize her five-year-old daughter before murdering her in an abandoned house failed to react as he was handed four death sentences.
Jeremy Williams, 39, kidnapped little Kamarie Holland from her home in Columbus, Georgia, before raping and strangling her to death.
Mother Kristen Siple told police she found Kamarie missing and the front door open when she woke up at 5:50 a.m. on December 13, 2021.
But last month he pleaded guilty to one count of human sex trafficking and faces up to 20 years in prison.
“If ever there was anyone who deserved the death penalty it was Jeremy Williams,” Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor told reporters.
“It’s another kind of evil that we, in society, simply don’t need to deal with.”
Jeremy Williams, 39, showed no emotion as Russell County Circuit Court Judge David Johnson handed him four death sentences.
Kamarie was described in court as “very sweet and loving” by her now 13-year-old sister.
Kamarie’s mother, Kristen Siple, pleaded guilty last month to one count of human sex trafficking for the sale of her daughter and faces up to 20 years in prison.
The girl’s body was found that same night in the basement of an abandoned house where Williams had lived, just across the Alabama state line in Phenix City.
At the trial in Russell County Circuit Court, some jurors broke down in tears as they were played videos of the rape and body camera footage of officers finding her body.
Witnesses lined up to convict the serial child molester who was already a suspect in the murder of a one-year-old boy in Alabama and was acquitted of submerging a three-year-old boy in a pot of boiling water in 2009.
Williams’ ex-wife called him “soulless” and told him, “You no longer deserve my tears,” and a 23-year-old woman who was only four when Williams sexually abused her called him a “monster.”
“I feel so many things that I can’t feel anything,” he said.
“You don’t deserve life,” Kamarie’s father, Corey Holland, told him. “We don’t have Kamarie and you don’t deserve to see your children or your life.”
She also read a letter written by Kamarie’s 13-year-old sister in which she wrote, “I don’t understand why anyone would hurt her; she was so sweet and loving.”
Williams was also sentenced to life in prison for production of obscene material of a child and human trafficking, 20 years for conspiracy to human trafficking and 10 years for abuse of a corpse.
Sergeant Jane Edenfield, the Columbus police officer who found Kamarie’s body, returned to the Alabama courtroom for sentencing Monday with some of her colleagues.
‘To listen to the other victims and know how much he has done. And like one of them said, she took so long,’ she said. ‘Distressing. Distressing.’
Jury forewoman Stacy Mote also returned for sentencing after delivering the guilty verdict.
“This was a very difficult case to endure and I’m sure you saw all the emotions on our faces,” she told reporters.
Williams was also sentenced to life in prison for production of obscene material of a child and human trafficking, 20 years for conspiracy to human trafficking and 10 years for abuse of a corpse.
Siple maintained his innocence before pleading guilty last month.
The abandoned house where Kamarie’s body was found just hours after her disappearance
“If ever there was anyone who deserved the death penalty, it’s Jeremy Williams,” Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor told reporters.
‘On behalf of all the jurors involved, we are proud of the young victims and witnesses who came forward to tell their difficult truth because we know it was terribly painful.
‘When they introduced themselves, everyone gave a voice to little Kamari. No child should have to endure what happened to her.
Williams is now being held on death row at Holman State Prison in Atmore, but Russell County District Attorney Rick Chancey said he will likely die before the killer.
“At the current rate, my life expectancy is probably shorter than yours,” the 55-year-old told WRBL.
He said he had recently visited the girl’s grave and added: “There is no reason the baby should be buried.”
‘I want to remember her, not this joker. Jeremy is not someone I want to remember in life.