00:00:01
[music]
00:00:05
>> On May the 24th, 1992,
00:00:08
a grieving man arrived at a quiet
00:00:11
cemetery to place flowers on his
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father's grave.
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But something disturbing caught his eye.
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>> He looks off in the distance and he sees
00:00:22
this man
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that appears to be assaulting this
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woman.
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And so he realized something was really
00:00:29
wrong.
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>> The man rushed out of the cemetery to
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find help. After a police chase, the
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assailant was caught and the woman was
00:00:38
rescued from the back of his car.
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>> She was near death because she was being
00:00:44
asphyxiated by some sort of device
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around her neck.
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>> The attacker was 38-year-old Leslie
00:00:53
Allen Williams and police soon
00:00:55
discovered that this wasn't his first
00:00:57
abduction.
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After finding evidence in his home
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linking him to four missing teenage
00:01:03
girls, Williams confessed to their
00:01:06
murders.
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>> I think Williams confessing was for his
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own benefit and absolutely nobody else's
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benefit whatsoever.
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>> When we interviewed him, he expressed no
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emotion.
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It was like he was ordering a cup of
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coffee.
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>> Left with nowhere to run, Leslie Allen
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Williams had been unmasked as one of the
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world's most evil killers.
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>> In July 1992, at Oakland County Circuit
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Court in Michigan,
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Leslie Allen Williams pleaded guilty to
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the murders of 18-year-old Kami
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Villanueva, 16-year-old Michelle Urbin,
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and her 14-year-old sister Melissa, and
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15-year-old Cynthia Jones.
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The serial killer even led police to the
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sites where he'd buried their bodies.
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>> There can be no doubt [music] that
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Leslie Allen Williams was a truly evil
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man.
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He took the life of four
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young high school students who had their
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whole lives in front of them.
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It was an act of grotesque depravity.
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>> A really sad thing about this case is
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each one of these four teenage girls he
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killed, he told them that he would let
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them go.
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He told them that if they just did what
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he said,
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they'd be okay. He'd release them. And I
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think that makes it
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>> [music]
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>> way worse.
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>> The families and the jury were horrified
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to learn that Williams had previously
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been let out of prison early for good
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behavior.
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>> Leslie Allen Williams had been a career
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criminal
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and was released many times
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by our parole boards
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and it was
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shortly after his release that the first
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of the four girls that he kidnapped and
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killed disappeared.
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>> There was a great deal of criticism
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publicly, especially in the media.
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There were people at the time of the
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Williams case who began campaigning for
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a reform of Michigan's parole system.
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>> If Williams had not been caught
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in May of 1992, [music]
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he would not have stopped.
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There would have been other people
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kidnapped,
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violated,
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and killed.
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>> This killer's story begins in the
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Midwest.
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Leslie Allen Williams was born on
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Independence Day, July the 4th, 1953,
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and he grew up in Detroit, Michigan.
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>> His mother had been married before, and
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she had two daughters.
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But then, she married Leslie's father,
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and they had three boys together.
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But
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neither were exactly perfect parents.
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>> He grew up in his earliest years in a
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suburb of Detroit called Garden City,
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and his mom was known to work
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prostitution in the home.
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His dad was sexually abusing Leslie's
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sisters.
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So, it was a troubled upbringing.
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>> When Williams witnessed the sexual
00:05:02
violence in his home, the sexual abuse
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of his siblings, and the sex work of his
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mom, he probably learned quite early on
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that relationships are highly
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transactional, and they're not about
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emotional connection. And that is going
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to have a significant on the way he
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conducts his own relationships.
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>> After an investigation into the sexual
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abuse of his stepdaughters,
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Williams' father was committed to a
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state hospital for the criminally
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insane,
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but not before alerting police to his
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wife's sex work.
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>> Leslie's mother took
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some of the family to California in an
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effort I think to escape the reputation
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that she had
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in Detroit.
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She then fell in love and after she was
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divorced, she married her third husband.
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But that too didn't really go well.
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In the end, she decided that she would
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divorce the third husband.
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But then tragically on the night [music]
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before the divorce hearing,
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her third husband went to visit her
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and killed her, shot her in the head
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before killing himself.
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She has two boys of hers with her
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and anything they might have seen as
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normal has gone out of the window.
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It's hard to imagine a worse upbringing.
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>> At just 9 years old, Leslie Allen
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Williams had lost both of his parents.
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>> His mother was murdered, his father was
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a sex offender, he had no stability, no
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boundaries in his [music] life at all
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and and no child should have to tolerate
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that.
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>> [music]
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>> Now Leslie was without either parent. So
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at that point, he and a brother of his
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were brought back to Michigan to live
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with their grandparents in Milford,
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which is another Detroit suburb on the
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west side of Metro Detroit.
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>> As Williams neared adulthood, he turned
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towards a darker, criminal path.
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>> [music]
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>> He was only 17 years old in 1970. He was
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arrested for breaking and entering in a
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home
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and that began a long criminal career.
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>> Williams' history of offending, it
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started when he was really young. And
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the younger it starts, quite often the
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more longevity it has, the more it's
00:07:54
going to carry on.
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>> Between 1972 and 1983, he's literally in
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and out of prison, in and out of the
00:08:02
court.
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It's just a litany, including burglary,
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more significantly
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sexual assault and attempted kidnapping.
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He's either being charged, waiting on
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bail, in prison.
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>> For somebody like Williams, who was
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relentless in his offending, he may have
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felt empowered by the system not holding
00:08:27
him to account.
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But also, I think given his personality
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traits, I think he already felt quite
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entitled and empowered to behave the way
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he did, and probably manipulated and
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used the system.
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>> In 1983,
00:08:46
Williams broke into a woman's home. But
00:08:49
what started as a routine burglary
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quickly took a sinister turn and
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escalated to attempted kidnap and sexual
00:08:58
assault.
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>> He was recognized at that point as being
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a habitual offender. And so, he had a
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couple different sentences in front of
00:09:07
him. For the actual assault, he had a
00:09:08
sentence of 5 to 10 years. For being a
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habitual offender, he had a sentence of
00:09:14
7 to 30 years.
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>> It's the first lengthy sentence he's
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had, so he's going to be an older, or at
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least an old man by the time he gets out
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of jail.
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>> With Williams behind bars, women in
00:09:29
Detroit could finally sleep a little
00:09:32
easier.
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But not for long.
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>> He's an absolutely model prisoner.
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He has a particularly receptive
00:09:40
psychiatrist
00:09:42
who says, "Well, I think, you know, you
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have really made splendid progress and
00:09:47
you know, we want to rehabilitate you."
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And so writes [music] a very glowing
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report to the prison authorities about
00:09:55
just how well Leslie Williams has done.
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>> In 1990, 37-year-old Williams was
00:10:02
released on parole after serving just
00:10:05
six years of his maximum 30-year
00:10:08
sentence.
00:10:09
>> People were probably manipulated [music]
00:10:12
by this idea that because he was polite,
00:10:15
that somehow that meant he wasn't
00:10:18
dangerous.
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Despite all of the evidence showing that
00:10:22
he was a repeat and serial offender.
00:10:27
>> In my opinion, he could have been kept
00:10:30
in longer and he should have been.
00:10:33
I don't know why they were so lenient
00:10:36
with him given the nature of his
00:10:38
offending.
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>> Despite the severity of his crimes, the
00:10:43
parole system was satisfied that
00:10:45
Williams was a changed man.
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The following year, the mysterious
00:10:51
disappearance of an 18-year-old woman
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from her home would spark fear
00:10:57
across the community.
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In the early hours of September the
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15th, 1991,
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in the quiet village of South Lyon,
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Oakland County, Michigan, 18-year-old
00:11:16
Kami Villanueva was home alone whilst
00:11:19
her older sister was out on a date.
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>> Kami Villanueva, she's 18. She's a
00:11:27
bright, honor student, cheerful, whole
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world in front of her.
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>> [music]
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>> Quite a shy girl. She wasn't a great
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party-goer and she lived with her
00:11:37
sisters.
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>> [music]
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>> Cammie's older sister came home and saw
00:11:44
that uh Cammie was not home.
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She went into her room. She saw that
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things were basically undisturbed.
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>> The bedroom is deserted, but everything
00:11:57
that Cammie left is all just exactly as
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it was.
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In fact, she's astounded.
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Is her inhaler,
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the solitaire she was playing,
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purse,
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denim jacket, which she never went out
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without.
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It's as if she's disappeared into thin
00:12:14
air.
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>> She wondered, "Okay, what happened?
00:12:18
Where is she?"
00:12:20
The following day, she reported her
00:12:21
missing to police.
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>> There was no signs of any kind of forced
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entry.
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From you know, my conversations with
00:12:32
the Oakland County Sheriff's Department
00:12:35
detectives that worked that part of the
00:12:37
case,
00:12:39
it was unknown why she was no longer
00:12:41
home.
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>> Nobody knew what [music] happened to
00:12:45
her. She was a missing person case. They
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don't They didn't know if she had been
00:12:49
killed or if she ran away or what
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happened.
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>> Just as police were getting to grips
00:12:55
with Cammie's [music] case, 2 weeks
00:12:57
later they received another call from
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the concerned parents of two teenage
00:13:02
girls,
00:13:04
16-year-old Michelle and 14-year-old
00:13:07
Melissa Urban.
00:13:10
>> Melissa and Michelle Urban had a
00:13:13
perfectly normal sisters relationship,
00:13:15
partly wonderful friendship, partly
00:13:17
hating each other. It was a [music]
00:13:19
typical sisterly bond.
00:13:23
>> They lived in a rural area of Michigan
00:13:25
near the town of Hartland, which is
00:13:28
about an hour northwest of Detroit.
00:13:33
>> They have nothing particular to worry
00:13:35
about, and it's a perfectly ordinary
00:13:37
day.
00:13:39
>> On September the 29th, 1991,
00:13:43
after a Sunday dinner with the family,
00:13:46
the two girls set off on an evening
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walk.
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>> The morning after they had gone for
00:13:52
their walk,
00:13:54
when the father noticed they weren't
00:13:56
home,
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he said,
00:13:58
>> [music]
00:13:58
>> "We need to call the police."
00:14:02
A young trooper was sent to make contact
00:14:05
with the parents,
00:14:08
and it was learned from them that they
00:14:10
did not return home the night before.
00:14:14
>> The police retraced [music] the steps
00:14:16
the sisters had taken on their walks,
00:14:19
and found no trace of them. They also
00:14:21
began to interview the local community
00:14:23
[music] to find out the background,
00:14:25
but nothing led them to what had
00:14:27
happened to the sisters.
00:14:31
>> The information we got
00:14:33
>> [music]
00:14:33
>> in contacting friends and family members
00:14:36
was that they did not know anything
00:14:38
about it. They had not seen the girls,
00:14:40
had not heard from them.
00:14:42
They were concerned.
00:14:45
They did not
00:14:46
understand why the girls would have been
00:14:49
been gone for so long.
00:14:52
>> Although these contacts didn't provide
00:14:55
an explanation for Michelle and
00:14:57
Melissa's disappearance, they did reveal
00:15:00
this wasn't the first time the girls had
00:15:02
gone missing.
00:15:04
>> A young trooper did a very good
00:15:06
background finding that they had at one
00:15:09
point run away for a weekend before
00:15:12
returning home.
00:15:15
With any missing person report, we
00:15:17
always expect the worst.
00:15:22
But because of their the past history
00:15:24
where the girls had
00:15:26
had been missing voluntarily, it wasn't
00:15:28
until
00:15:30
several days later,
00:15:32
perhaps a week or two actually before
00:15:34
the concern became greater.
00:15:37
They had never been gone this long.
00:15:40
They had left behind items that
00:15:43
they would not have left behind before.
00:15:47
>> They were reported as missing and then
00:15:49
the family struggled for months not
00:15:52
knowing what happened to those girls.
00:15:57
>> With no leads and concern mounting for
00:16:00
the whereabouts of Michelle and Melissa,
00:16:02
police brought in Michigan state
00:16:04
profiler David Minzey to help with their
00:16:07
investigation.
00:16:11
>> First thing I did was make sure that I
00:16:13
go meet with detectives.
00:16:16
I want to know the things that weren't
00:16:17
in the report. What bothered them? What
00:16:20
about that case was troubling them?
00:16:22
>> [music]
00:16:23
>> We focus on the victimology. These are
00:16:26
very low-risk victims who now are
00:16:29
missing. Something terrible likely
00:16:31
happened to them.
00:16:32
>> [music]
00:16:33
>> And to help them develop media releases
00:16:35
that will hopefully get the good tips,
00:16:37
to look more into the background.
00:16:41
>> A closer look at the Milford area
00:16:43
revealed that cases of female missing
00:16:46
persons were rather [music] uncommon.
00:16:48
Highlighting chilling similarities
00:16:50
between the Urban sisters and Kami
00:16:53
Viaduct Weaver.
00:16:55
>> It must have begun to strike the
00:16:57
authorities
00:16:59
that the disappearance of three high
00:17:01
school girls
00:17:03
within a period of literally [music]
00:17:06
three weeks was quite unusual.
00:17:10
>> They lived in a very rural area,
00:17:13
very sparsely populated. Crime was
00:17:18
almost non-existent up there.
00:17:21
>> All of a sudden we had something pop up
00:17:24
here in Oakland County primarily. In
00:17:27
fact, in the Milford area. And I grew up
00:17:29
there, so I knew that the area did not
00:17:31
have a whole lot of crime, particularly
00:17:32
involving missing teenage [music] girls.
00:17:38
Something came into this area
00:17:40
and likely was connected to all of these
00:17:42
victims and we needed to find out who
00:17:44
that was.
00:17:48
>> Just 1 year before the teenagers went
00:17:51
missing from [music] Oakland County,
00:17:53
37-year-old Leslie Allen Williams had
00:17:56
been granted early release from prison
00:17:58
after serving just 6 years of a maximum
00:18:02
30-year sentence for attempted
00:18:04
kidnapping and sexual assault.
00:18:08
>> He was released very quickly in 1990.
00:18:12
He was surprised to be paroled that
00:18:15
early.
00:18:17
>> His first residence was in Wayne County,
00:18:19
[music]
00:18:20
Michigan.
00:18:22
The parole officer that he saw there
00:18:25
said that Williams complied with
00:18:27
everything that was required of him.
00:18:29
>> He was checking [music] off the boxes.
00:18:31
He was working a job and then he was
00:18:33
providing proof that he was working a
00:18:35
job. He was showing them his check
00:18:37
stubs. [music]
00:18:38
He was reporting in regularly.
00:18:41
>> He was engaged in counseling.
00:18:45
He moved to Oakland County.
00:18:48
His parole agent changed.
00:18:50
So once again,
00:18:52
new eyes
00:18:54
looking at him,
00:18:56
but he was still complying with the
00:18:57
requirements that the parole board had
00:18:59
set for him.
00:19:02
>> His parole officers over the years
00:19:05
considered him what they called a model
00:19:07
parolee. He seemed to be doing
00:19:09
everything that he was expected to do.
00:19:12
>> He caused no trouble. He attracted no
00:19:15
attention.
00:19:16
In fact, I think one parole officer said
00:19:19
that he was ideal to deal with.
00:19:22
>> As Williams was settling into a new life
00:19:25
seemingly on the straight and narrow,
00:19:27
Oakland County police were still baffled
00:19:30
as to the whereabouts of 18-year-old
00:19:32
Kami Villanueva and teenage sisters
00:19:35
Michelle and Melissa Urban.
00:19:38
But before police could begin to connect
00:19:41
the dots, another teenage girl
00:19:44
would vanish into thin air.
00:19:55
On January the 4th, 1992,
00:19:58
15-year-old schoolgirl Cynthia Jones
00:20:01
>> [music]
00:20:01
>> was hanging out with her 16-year-old
00:20:03
boyfriend in his car at Central Park in
00:20:07
Milford.
00:20:09
>> She was an archetypal high school girl.
00:20:12
She was an honor student. She was a
00:20:14
cheerleader. She was cheerful. She was
00:20:17
very much happy with her boyfriend.
00:20:20
>> They were in the car and while they were
00:20:22
sitting there in the car, this man ran
00:20:25
up to them in a ski mask.
00:20:29
And tells them he has to have the car.
00:20:31
Get out of the car. I need the car.
00:20:34
He gives them a story that he just
00:20:35
robbed a place. And so he forces them
00:20:38
out of the car.
00:20:40
>> You can imagine they were very
00:20:41
frightened.
00:20:42
And he marches the couple into a nearby
00:20:45
wooded area
00:20:47
where he proceeds to tie up the
00:20:49
boyfriend to one of the trees.
00:20:53
The boyfriend tries to escape
00:20:55
but the man with the ski mask ushers
00:20:59
Cindy
00:21:01
into a wood not far away. And it's the
00:21:03
last the boyfriend [music] ever sees of
00:21:05
her.
00:21:08
>> Just minutes later, the boyfriend freed
00:21:10
himself from his restraints and called
00:21:13
the police.
00:21:15
They searched the entire park, but
00:21:17
despite their best efforts, they were
00:21:20
unable to find any clues to Cynthia's
00:21:22
whereabouts
00:21:24
nor the identity of her abductor.
00:21:29
>> Her boyfriend was not able to identify
00:21:31
him because his identity was obscured,
00:21:33
but still at least her boyfriend was
00:21:36
able to report this to police so they
00:21:39
knew that Cindy had been abducted.
00:21:43
>> But the lack of details on the assailant
00:21:46
>> [music]
00:21:46
>> meant the police were struggling to find
00:21:48
the teenage couple's attacker.
00:21:51
>> Predators are really difficult to
00:21:54
identify and to capture. And there's
00:21:57
quite a few reasons for that. The
00:21:59
biggest one obviously being that they
00:22:02
rarely have any relationship
00:22:06
to the person that they've assaulted.
00:22:08
Nothing that links them in any way.
00:22:13
Police have to start from a position of
00:22:15
there's 30,000 people that live in this
00:22:17
area. It could be any one of them. They
00:22:19
have to go on
00:22:21
other
00:22:22
motivations, forms of evidence,
00:22:24
identifying suspects.
00:22:28
>> As a result, police had to consider one
00:22:31
potential suspect.
00:22:34
>> Because of the odd circumstances,
00:22:37
the boyfriend, he was thought to be a
00:22:39
suspect
00:22:41
for the longest time.
00:22:43
>> [music]
00:22:44
>> Was he trying to cover up the fact that
00:22:46
she'd run away? Was he trying to cover
00:22:49
up even worse that he'd killed her and
00:22:51
hidden her body?
00:22:53
>> Police could find absolutely no evidence
00:22:56
to suggest Cynthia's boyfriend was
00:22:58
involved in her disappearance and he was
00:23:01
officially ruled out as a suspect 6 days
00:23:04
later.
00:23:06
>> The 16-year-old boyfriend
00:23:08
was traumatized by this experience. How
00:23:10
could he not have been? He's watched the
00:23:12
girl he was
00:23:13
>> [music]
00:23:13
>> falling in love with being escorted away
00:23:15
by a masked man. He's left tied to a
00:23:18
tree, and then he's suspected of
00:23:19
Cynthia's abduction.
00:23:21
It is something that would be very, very
00:23:23
difficult to recover from.
00:23:26
>> With their only suspect eliminated from
00:23:29
the inquiry, police were no closer to
00:23:32
finding Cynthia's true kidnapper.
00:23:38
>> Four missing girls that turn up in the
00:23:41
span of a few months from September 1991
00:23:44
to January 1992, and you have [music]
00:23:46
three different police departments that
00:23:49
are investigating their disappearance.
00:23:53
>> They were at cross-jurisdictional
00:23:55
boundaries where the communication
00:23:58
wasn't always there.
00:24:00
This was at a time before
00:24:02
there were yellow alerts, which in the
00:24:05
United States [music] and in Michigan,
00:24:08
when there are missing juveniles,
00:24:10
there are alerts sent out over cell
00:24:13
phones telling people, "Watch for these
00:24:16
people. They're missing. They may be
00:24:18
endangered."
00:24:19
But there was no indication at that time
00:24:22
that they were connected.
00:24:25
>> The luck of the police would soon
00:24:28
change.
00:24:32
Over 4 months later, on May the 24th,
00:24:36
1992,
00:24:37
Oakland County's Deputy Sheriff was
00:24:40
taking a traffic accident report in
00:24:42
Springfield Township when a panicked man
00:24:45
approached and told him about an attack
00:24:48
that was happening in a nearby cemetery.
00:24:51
>> He's there to visit his dad's grave.
00:24:54
He pulls up in his car, and there's
00:24:56
another vehicle sitting there in the way
00:24:58
blocking his path, and one of the doors
00:25:01
of the car is open, but the car is
00:25:02
empty.
00:25:05
He looks off in the distance, and he
00:25:06
sees this man
00:25:08
that appears to be assaulting this
00:25:10
woman.
00:25:13
And meanwhile, this man looks over and
00:25:15
sees this guy notice him.
00:25:18
And that's when he says,
00:25:20
"Leave us alone. We're just having sex."
00:25:24
This witness was knowing that was not
00:25:26
the case. They were both fully clothed
00:25:28
for one thing, and this did not appear
00:25:30
to be a sexual situation. This seemed to
00:25:32
be a violent assault.
00:25:35
>> The woman is clearly being attacked,
00:25:38
and
00:25:39
the passerby goes and finds a traffic
00:25:42
policeman who's not far away.
00:25:44
The policeman comes back.
00:25:47
>> He was speeding out of the cemetery as
00:25:49
the cop was coming in, and the cop
00:25:51
realized, "Okay, that's the guy." And
00:25:53
chased him. And this started a little
00:25:55
bit of a harrowing car chase that was
00:25:59
also a foot chase cuz at one point this
00:26:02
man wrecked his car and got out on foot
00:26:05
and tried to get away.
00:26:07
>> After an intense chase, police were able
00:26:10
to capture their assailant, and they
00:26:12
were shocked to learn that this wasn't
00:26:15
their suspect's first time in handcuffs.
00:26:18
He revealed himself as 38-year-old
00:26:21
seasoned criminal Leslie Allen Williams.
00:26:25
Williams is slightly shamefaced, but
00:26:28
nevertheless is arrested
00:26:31
on suspicion of the attack on the woman
00:26:33
in the cemetery.
00:26:34
But then announces to the officer
00:26:37
that actually the woman he was attacking
00:26:40
is in the boot of his car, and she won't
00:26:42
be able to breathe for very long as
00:26:44
she's in there.
00:26:47
>> She was near death, I believe, because
00:26:50
she was being asphyxiated by some sort
00:26:53
of device around her neck.
00:26:56
>> Williams had placed her in the trunk
00:26:58
reportedly with one of his plastic ties
00:27:01
that he liked to use around her [music]
00:27:03
neck. And so, the police officer was
00:27:05
able to get into the trunk and get to
00:27:08
her right before
00:27:11
anything terrible happened and rescue
00:27:13
her.
00:27:18
>> The police officer reached the woman
00:27:20
just in time and she was quickly
00:27:22
transported to hospital where she made a
00:27:25
full recovery.
00:27:28
With the victim safe, the focus shifted
00:27:31
to questioning her attacker.
00:27:33
>> Williams was arrested,
00:27:35
taken into police custody.
00:27:38
And as they were talking to him, he
00:27:40
really wasn't giving much up.
00:27:44
>> Because of looking at his criminal
00:27:46
history
00:27:48
and past,
00:27:50
that uh further investigation was done.
00:27:53
There was a search warrant
00:27:56
that was executed at his home.
00:28:00
>> They found plastic zip ties.
00:28:02
They found the shovel in his car, too.
00:28:04
So, they knew there was something more
00:28:06
to this guy than just trying to attack
00:28:09
somebody in a cemetery.
00:28:11
And when they searched his house, they
00:28:14
found a ring.
00:28:17
>> That ring belonged to none other than
00:28:19
the missing 18-year-old Cammie
00:28:22
Villanueva.
00:28:24
Suspecting Williams may be involved in
00:28:27
Cammie's disappearance, they made
00:28:29
contact with his ex-girlfriend to find
00:28:32
out more about the man they had in
00:28:34
custody.
00:28:36
And what she had to say filled them with
00:28:39
dread.
00:28:41
>> She told police how she had during their
00:28:44
relationship given Williams a kitten to
00:28:47
take care of. And Williams told her
00:28:49
later that he killed the kitten
00:28:51
for whatever reason, who knows. But he
00:28:54
also buried the kitten. And so police
00:28:56
were very interested.
00:28:58
>> Williams' ex-girlfriend gave police the
00:29:01
location of the burial site. And on a
00:29:04
hunch that Williams might have revisited
00:29:06
a place he already knew, they headed
00:29:09
straight for it.
00:29:11
>> They started digging and they realized
00:29:13
that they were about to discover Cammie
00:29:16
[music]
00:29:16
Villanueva.
00:29:21
>> Once presented with the overwhelming
00:29:23
evidence, Williams had no choice but to
00:29:26
confess to Cammie's murder.
00:29:29
And what he revealed next added a
00:29:32
disturbing twist.
00:29:35
>> When he was on parole from prison in
00:29:37
1990,
00:29:39
>> [music]
00:29:39
>> he worked in a gas station.
00:29:42
And another girl who worked in the gas
00:29:43
station
00:29:45
had a sister called Cammie Villanueva.
00:29:50
>> Williams would actually see Cammie
00:29:52
coming to the gas station where he
00:29:55
worked. He was aware of where they lived
00:29:57
and what their [music] habits were.
00:29:59
>> Absolutely Williams' cup of tea.
00:30:03
And so when he gets out of jail,
00:30:05
one of the first people he targets is
00:30:09
Cammie Villanueva.
00:30:12
>> Cammie was home alone. She was in her
00:30:15
bedroom. She was sitting there playing
00:30:18
solitaire with a deck of cards.
00:30:20
>> Williams told investigators that after
00:30:23
donning a ski mask in a bid to disguise
00:30:26
himself, he approached the home of
00:30:28
Cammie Villanueva armed with a pocket
00:30:31
knife.
00:30:33
>> He realized that her door was unlocked.
00:30:37
He came inside. He abducted her.
00:30:42
He forced her into his car. He took her
00:30:45
to another location.
00:30:48
>> Williams takes her to a cemetery not
00:30:50
very far away
00:30:52
where he proceeds to uh
00:30:54
rape her and to kill her.
00:30:57
>> His method was strangulation, which is
00:30:58
very common among killers because it's
00:31:00
up close and personal.
00:31:03
You get an opportunity to, you know,
00:31:04
interact with your victim and control
00:31:06
their life. That's the ultimate exercise
00:31:09
of power.
00:31:10
And I think that that's what he did.
00:31:14
>> He actually dug a shallow grave
00:31:16
in a field
00:31:19
and buried her.
00:31:21
Only to revisit her months later.
00:31:25
>> There were reports that Williams had dug
00:31:29
up and had sex with the body. So,
00:31:32
there's some kind of necrophilia going
00:31:33
on here.
00:31:36
>> That is not unheard of with killers.
00:31:39
They will, if they can, revisit
00:31:43
a body again to get that emotional
00:31:48
moment, [music] relive it, maybe
00:31:51
re-assault
00:31:53
the victim.
00:31:55
>> How could somebody come back and the
00:31:56
smell is terrible and the it's, you
00:31:58
know, condition of the body is bad? How
00:32:00
could they do that? But we're talking
00:32:02
about people who are wired differently.
00:32:05
The going back allows him to relive that
00:32:07
whole event over and over again.
00:32:11
>> Leslie Allen Williams had confessed to
00:32:14
the murder of Cammy Villanueva, and he
00:32:17
hadn't finished yet.
00:32:19
As he continued to talk, the 38-year-old
00:32:23
would reveal even more disturbing
00:32:25
information that would leave detectives
00:32:29
horrified.
00:32:38
On the evening of May the 27th, 1992,
00:32:42
in the Oakland County Sheriff's Office,
00:32:45
38-year-old Leslie Allen Williams had
00:32:48
confessed to raping and killing
00:32:50
18-year-old Kami Viən Weaver 8 months
00:32:53
earlier.
00:32:56
What began as a single admission soon
00:32:58
snowballed into a cascade of
00:33:01
confessions.
00:33:04
>> When Williams was interviewed by the
00:33:06
Sheriff's deputies
00:33:08
and began telling about Kami, he also
00:33:11
admitted to the kidnapping and murder of
00:33:14
the Urban sisters.
00:33:17
>> The two teenage sisters, 16-year-old
00:33:20
Michelle and 14-year-old Melissa Urban,
00:33:23
had gone missing on September the 29th,
00:33:26
1991,
00:33:28
after going out for a walk.
00:33:30
It had been a cold case for 8 months
00:33:34
until now.
00:33:36
>> At that point, the state police in
00:33:38
Brighton was contacted. Our detective
00:33:41
bureau was activated. We're able to take
00:33:44
Williams into our custody
00:33:48
and interview him.
00:33:50
>> Williams admitted he'd been watching the
00:33:52
Urban sisters for several days.
00:33:56
>> The reason he was up in that area
00:33:59
stalking people was because he was
00:34:01
court-ordered to see a
00:34:04
psychotherapist
00:34:06
who was
00:34:09
just miles away from where the Urban
00:34:10
sisters lived.
00:34:14
>> They went out for a walk near their home
00:34:17
in that remote area
00:34:18
>> [music]
00:34:19
>> and Williams realized this. He saw them
00:34:22
and he hid in some bushes and he waited
00:34:24
for them to come up on him and he jumped
00:34:28
out.
00:34:30
>> And with a small pocket knife,
00:34:32
he threatened the girls,
00:34:34
grabbing one of them.
00:34:37
The other girl submitted to his demands,
00:34:40
fearing for her sister.
00:34:43
>> And what's more, he'd gone to the
00:34:45
lengths of taking photographs of them,
00:34:47
which he'd kept as souvenirs, which
00:34:49
again the police found in their search
00:34:51
of his house.
00:34:53
>> Taking a trophy really is about a
00:34:56
conquest. You hear the term souvenir and
00:34:58
trophy. A souvenir just means that we
00:35:00
were at some place. A trophy means that
00:35:03
we won. We conquered something. And so
00:35:06
taking those things allows him to relive
00:35:08
those events over and over again.
00:35:12
>> He first tried to completely
00:35:15
incapacitate them with starter fluid,
00:35:18
much like an ether, to put them to
00:35:20
sleep,
00:35:21
and suffocated them.
00:35:27
>> After killing the two girls, Williams
00:35:30
told detectives that he drove 4 miles to
00:35:32
the outskirts of Fenton, Michigan, where
00:35:35
he callously buried the teenage sisters,
00:35:38
once again digging a shallow grave in a
00:35:41
nearby cemetery.
00:35:44
>> He covered the Arbin sisters with
00:35:47
blankets, and that quite possibly was to
00:35:50
protect the bodies from
00:35:53
the earth and and everything around them
00:35:55
to perhaps keep them
00:35:57
in a better state for a longer time.
00:36:02
He didn't bury them deep enough that he
00:36:05
couldn't get access to them.
00:36:09
>> Williams also revealed his cruel final
00:36:12
words to the terrified young sisters.
00:36:16
>> He told [music] them that he would let
00:36:18
them go.
00:36:20
He told them that if they just did what
00:36:22
he said,
00:36:23
>> [music]
00:36:24
>> they'd be okay. He'd release them. And I
00:36:26
think that makes it way worse.
00:36:30
>> In police custody, Williams had
00:36:32
confessed to three murders, but he
00:36:35
didn't stop there.
00:36:36
Detectives were about to discover one
00:36:39
final victim.
00:36:41
15-year-old schoolgirl Cynthia Jones,
00:36:44
who was abducted whilst on a date with
00:36:47
her boyfriend [music] in Central Park in
00:36:49
Milford.
00:36:51
>> He took Cindy in his car and like with
00:36:55
the other victims, he raped her.
00:36:58
He did change his MO a little bit
00:37:01
though.
00:37:02
He had strangled Kimmie Villanueva.
00:37:05
He had suffocated the two girls, but
00:37:08
then with Cynthia Jones, he actually
00:37:11
stabbed her in the chest with his knife
00:37:14
and buried her in a shallow grave.
00:37:18
>> Now, that could be many reasons for
00:37:21
that. It It could be that uh she got out
00:37:24
of his control.
00:37:25
It could be that he needed to do [music]
00:37:28
it very quickly and efficiently and to
00:37:32
strangle someone takes longer
00:37:35
potentially than stabbing someone.
00:37:38
>> After confessing [music] to the murders
00:37:41
of the four teenagers, Williams made one
00:37:44
final deal with police.
00:37:47
>> When they were able to obtain
00:37:49
confessions from Williams, he agreed to
00:37:52
take them to where the other girls the
00:37:54
three other girls were buried. So, that
00:37:56
was up to the cemetery in Fenton where
00:37:58
the urban girls were buried and then
00:38:01
that was to the other part of Bruno Road
00:38:03
where Cindy Jones was buried.
00:38:07
>> I think Williams confessing was for his
00:38:10
own benefit and absolutely nobody else's
00:38:12
benefit whatsoever. If he says, "Look, I
00:38:15
can help you find more bodies and see
00:38:18
what a great guy I am and see how
00:38:20
sincere I am because this might help
00:38:24
with him making arguments that he wants
00:38:27
to change or that he feels remorse or
00:38:31
guilt or shame.
00:38:33
>> With an overwhelming amount of evidence
00:38:35
in front of him, including photographs
00:38:38
of the Urban sisters,
00:38:40
Kami Vianueva's ring, and the bodies,
00:38:43
Williams decided to plead guilty to all
00:38:46
four murders at the Oakland County Court
00:38:49
on June the 3rd, 1992.
00:38:53
>> He said something to the effect that he
00:38:55
just wanted to save [music] the
00:38:56
taxpayers the expense and save everybody
00:38:59
the grief, save the victim family
00:39:01
members the grief of going through a
00:39:03
trial. So, it was pretty quick that he
00:39:06
was sentenced. He was arrested in May
00:39:07
1992 and he was sentenced to everything
00:39:10
in July 1992 [music]
00:39:12
without a trial.
00:39:16
>> In Michigan, the punishment for
00:39:19
first-degree murder, capital murder,
00:39:21
is mandatory life in prison without
00:39:24
parole.
00:39:25
Kidnapping [music] in Michigan also
00:39:27
carries
00:39:28
a life sentence.
00:39:32
>> On July the 7th, 1992,
00:39:35
Williams was sentenced to life without
00:39:37
parole for the murder of Cynthia Jones.
00:39:40
Later that day, he was given four
00:39:42
consecutive life terms for kidnapping,
00:39:45
attempted murder, and the attempted rape
00:39:47
of the woman at the Springfield Township
00:39:50
Cemetery.
00:39:52
Williams was also sentenced to life for
00:39:55
Kami's murder on September the 24th and
00:39:58
for the Urban sisters murder on October
00:40:00
the 5th.
00:40:03
>> Cindy's mother was horrified
00:40:07
by the fact that her daughter had been
00:40:09
killed
00:40:11
by a man who'd been let out of prison
00:40:13
when he shouldn't have been.
00:40:15
Unfortunately, it's a plea we hear so
00:40:17
often from the victims of crime,
00:40:20
particularly violent murder.
00:40:23
>> I think Leslie Allen Williams represents
00:40:25
a failure of the entire criminal justice
00:40:27
system, particularly the parole system.
00:40:29
Leslie Allen Williams never should have
00:40:31
been on the street.
00:40:32
And there's four young ladies that are
00:40:34
dead because of that.
00:40:36
>> When he was serving a 30-year sentence
00:40:39
[music] back in 1983 for kidnap and
00:40:42
sexual assault, Williams' prison
00:40:44
psychiatrist wrote in her [music] report
00:40:47
that she felt he was making good
00:40:49
progress and was eligible for
00:40:52
rehabilitation.
00:40:55
>> The year that Williams was released from
00:40:57
prison on parole, there were, I believe,
00:41:01
11,000 people
00:41:04
in Michigan that went before the parole
00:41:06
board.
00:41:07
The parole board released almost 9,000
00:41:11
of those people on parole.
00:41:14
Subsequent to Williams'
00:41:16
>> [music]
00:41:16
>> convictions and sentencing,
00:41:20
the parents of Michelle and Melissa
00:41:22
Urban
00:41:23
were instrumental
00:41:26
in making changes
00:41:29
to the way the parole board in Michigan
00:41:31
reviews people
00:41:33
and releases people.
00:41:36
>> There was legislation enacted later in
00:41:38
1992, as I understand, to reform
00:41:42
Michigan's parole system. So, I guess
00:41:44
you could say that that's something that
00:41:46
hopefully is good that has come out of
00:41:47
the [music] case.
00:41:50
>> And it wasn't just the families that
00:41:52
were impacted by these tragic killings.
00:41:56
>> Now, I'll tell you, you know, people who
00:41:58
work on a serial killer case
00:42:01
never want to do that again. It is so
00:42:03
physically and emotionally draining
00:42:06
that, you know, it affects their family
00:42:08
life because they're spending more time
00:42:09
on the case.
00:42:11
Uh, and you know, there's a lot of
00:42:12
pressure from the media, from the
00:42:14
public, from you know, your boss to
00:42:16
solve these cases.
00:42:17
>> [music]
00:42:17
>> And while you do feel good that we
00:42:19
caught the guy, it's something that they
00:42:21
really don't want to have to go through
00:42:23
again.
00:42:26
>> My department, the Michigan State
00:42:27
Police, [music]
00:42:29
have counselors and psychologists on
00:42:31
staff
00:42:32
because they know of the toll
00:42:35
that investigations can have.
00:42:40
I personally feel there is no such thing
00:42:41
as justice in a case like this.
00:42:44
The girls will never be brought back.
00:42:47
The only thing we have is the knowledge
00:42:51
that Williams will never be able to do
00:42:53
this again.
00:42:55
And so that the other young women out
00:42:57
there
00:42:58
will be safe.
00:43:04
>> The decision to release Leslie Allen
00:43:07
Williams early proved to be
00:43:09
catastrophic.
00:43:11
He was a dangerous seasoned criminal
00:43:13
whose frequent appearances in and out of
00:43:16
prison didn't deter him from taking the
00:43:19
lives of Kami Vie Weaver, sisters
00:43:22
Michelle and Melissa Urban, and
00:43:24
15-year-old Cynthia Jones in the space
00:43:27
of just 9 months. This undoubtedly makes
00:43:30
Leslie Allen Williams one of the world's
00:43:33
most evil killers.
