Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 21, 1995 TAG: 9511210091
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press ADDISON, Ill.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Jacqueline Williams told friends she was going to have a baby. Authorities say she accomplished that by concocting a plot with her boyfriend and another man to shoot and stab a pregnant woman.
According to police, they killed the former girlfriend of one of the men and stabbed to death her 10-year-old daughter, then sliced open the dead woman's abdomen with scissors and plucked out a healthy boy.
They abducted the infant, who was due to be born Monday, and the slain woman's 8-year-old son, then slashed the older boy's throat and dumped his body in an alley.
Hours later, Williams' boyfriend told a relative that she had given birth to a son.
``This is unimaginable,'' said Joe Birkett, chief of criminal prosecution for the DuPage County state's attorney. ``You could not give a horror writer a better script. This puts `Natural Born Killers' to shame in terms of violence.''
A judge Monday ordered the three held without bond on charges of murder and aggravated kidnapping. They could face the death penalty if convicted.
``I'd just like to know why I'm being charged,'' a disheveled Williams, 28, said as she appeared in court. Her boyfriend, Fedell Caffey, 22, and Levern Ward, 24, of Wheaton, also were held in the DuPage County Jail.
They are accused of fatally stabbing Deborah Evans, 28, and killing her daughter, Samantha, 10, and son Joshua, 8. Another son, 17-month-old Jordan, was found unharmed early Friday in the bloody apartment; authorities say Ward is his father.
The baby, who weighs 6 pounds, 8 ounces and is named Elijah as his mother had intended, was said to be doing well at a hospital.
Birkett described the motive for the killings: ``They hatched a plot to take this baby.''
After Evans invited the three into her suburban apartment Thursday night, authorities say, Caffey shot her, then joined Ward in stabbing her before the two men went to a bedroom and fatally stabbed Samantha.
Then Caffey cut open Evans' body, and Williams extracted and resuscitated the baby; relatives said she has some training in nursing.
It's unclear how much 8-year-old Joshua saw, but Birkett said, ``With what this kid saw, you could call it torture.''
Caffey's cousin, Terrence Forest, said Caffey called him at 3 a.m. Friday ``and said he just had a son.'' Prosecutors said Williams, the mother of three children, had been pretending she was pregnant so she could claim the newborn as her own.
Investigators got their first break when a witness - someone they won't identify but apparently an acquaintance of Williams and Caffey - reported seeing and speaking to Joshua Evans in Williams' townhouse in Schaumburg, another northwest suburb of Chicago.
Police went to the townhouse Friday night, but Williams and Caffey were gone, possibly to kill Joshua and dump his body in an alley in Maywood, a suburb about 10 miles to the east. The two were arrested when they returned, and Ward was arrested later.
All three have long criminal records. Williams' includes convictions for theft and forgery, and Caffey has been convicted of attempted theft, domestic battery and unlawful use of a weapon.
Ward was released from a prison work camp in January after serving a three-year sentence for striking a police officer while trying to enter the home of a former girlfriend.
Police described the short, slender Ward as a ``ladies' man.'' One former girlfriend, Cynthia Aquilar, was granted two orders of protection and reported at least three violations. She sat in the courtroom sobbing Monday as Ward was brought in for a preliminary hearing.
Ward also had beaten Evans in the past, her cousin, Fred Moody, told Chicago television stations Sunday.
Neighbors said Williams and Caffey moved last summer to a townhouse complex in the middle-class suburb of Schaumburg. There were many visitors to the home, including police who were called to quell fights.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB