Mark Carman, the former Palm Coast Precinct Commander for the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, had been the Crescent City Police Chief for about a year when he got word that a man had been shot–murdered–at a place residents called “The Tree,” a vacant lot where the locals hung out, by an old, moss-ridden tree.
It was January 5, 2020. Within just about 24 hours, thanks to surveillance video from nearby Shephard’s Garage–the footage did not capture the shooting itself, but it was distinct enough that investigators could determine exactly who had been at the Tree–29-year-old Ahmad Kashard Williams was apprehended, and the shocking account of the killing was known. Williams had fled, but turned himself in.
Williams, who went by the nickname “Tookie” (like Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang co-founder who was killed by lethal injection at San Quentin in California in 2005), had been hanging out with his childhood friend Tykey Nixon and others under the tree, smoking pot and chatting.
Williams was on a cell phone, as a witness at the scene recalled to law enforcement afterward, and was overheard saying to the person at the other end: “This boy thinks I’m playing with him, I’m going to shoot him in seven minutes.” Williams disappeared into or near nearby house and reappeared shortly afterward. He walked up behind Nixon. He told him: “I told you I was going to shoot you.” He fired and killed his friend.
Last December, Williams pleaded guilty to second degree murder with a firearm. Today, Circuit Judge Alicia Washington sentenced him to life in prison.
“What the defendant did was inconceivable. He murdered his childhood friend for no apparent reason,” State Attorney R.J. Larizza was quoted as saying in a release his office issued this morning after the sentencing. “Our victim leaves behind a large family who will never understand the brutal and senseless killing of their family member.”
It was the first murder in Crescent City in about eight years. Carman requested that the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office take over the investigation, the Crescent City Police Department’s means being limited. It did, though the video proved key. “You could see the tree and you could see who was hanging out and they identified him somehow,” Carman said. “Witnesses over there sometimes in these close-knit neighborhoods will not tell even on a murder, they will not tell on each other. I think out of fear or whatever, and I think the guy was feared.”
Assistant State Attorney Mark Johnson prosecuted the case.
JimboXYZ says
This is just one of those crimes/murders where the death penalty really is the only solution here. Are you kidding me, he’s on the phone & saying that he’s going to shoot the other drug abuser in 7 minutes ? Nobody will muss him for a death penalty ? Would anyone even care if it was a humane put down or not. He’s on the phone making those statements, gets up, walks across the street to go get the gun and then approaches from behind & shoots him. At a certain point that’s pre-meditated retaliation for a drug induced witticism that was probably accurate & pretty funny. I almost curious to want to know what the punchline of the comment was.