Former Death Row inmate Dennis Williams, 46

March 22, 2003
BY NANCY MOFFETT
STAFF REPORTER
Chicago Sun-Times

Dennis Williams, one of the "Ford Heights Four,'' spent 18 years on Death Row for a crime he didn't commit yet still could hug a witness who helped put him there.
Mr. Williams, 46, died Thursday in his Flossmoor home, where he was found slumped.

His body was taken to the Cook County medical examiner's office, where the cause of death was unknown pending tests, a spokesman there said.

Mr. Williams, Willie Raines, Verneal Jimerson and Kenneth Adams were cleared in 1996 of the 1978 killings of a south suburban couple, Larry Lionberg and Carol Schmal.

The four were released after a Northwestern University professor and students unearthed proof of their innocence.

The four later sued Cook County for wrongful prosecution and Mr. Williams received part of a $36 million settlement.

Before the double murder, Mr. Williams' only criminal offense was taking a motorcycle on a teenage joyride, said Rob Warden, an investigative journalist who helped clear the Ford Heights Four and who is executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University.

"He was simply a young man. A horrible thing happened in his neighborhood; a young white couple were murdered. He walked out, joined the crowd when the police were removing the bodies and before he knew it, he was under arrest and didn't see freedom again for 18 years,'' Warden said.

Twice, he was sentenced to death.

While he was in prison, his mother died.

Besides that, his worst moment on Death Row was at the execution of his friend, Girvies Davis in 1995, Warden said. Mr. Williams, who thought Davis was innocent of killing a wheelchair-bound Belleville man, taught him to read and write while they were in prison.

Last year, Mr. Williams appeared at Northwestern Law School when former Gov. George Ryan announced the pardon of Paula Gray, the witness whose confession implicated him.

He saw her as someone who had been coerced--as also a victim, Warden said.
Mr. Williams got up and gave her a hug.

"Here was a man who had forgiven the person who had been instrumental in depriving him of 18 years of freedom,'' Warden said.
"He didn't blame her.''
After his release, Mr. Williams helped publicize efforts to exonerate wrongly convicted inmates.
He also showed talent at painting portraits, Warden said.

But "Dennis came out of prison a broken man,'' Warden said.

"The things that had happened to him were totally befuddling,'' Warden said.
Mr. Williams was a modest man, but he had become "a symbol and an inspiration to remind all of us of why we do what we do,'' he said.

While in prison, Mr. Williams once suffered convulsions in 1992, but the cause wasn't found and he was later given a clean bill of health, Warden said.

Mr. Williams was born in Chicago and grew up in East Chicago Heights, before it became Ford Heights.

He graduated from Bloom Township High School.

Survivors include a sister, Rosie Payne.

Services were pending.