00:00:05
SAM DOUGLAS: In the United
States of America, some of the world's
most infamous criminals
00:00:11
are behind bars. Held in a Nevada prison was
killer and one-man crime wave Anthony Williams.
00:00:21
- He was extremely dangerous. LINA HAJI: He had
no problem being violent, murdering,
attacking, assaulting
00:00:31
people his entire life. SAM DOUGLAS: Williams
was a high-ranking member of the notorious
white supremacist
00:00:38
gang the Aryan Warriors. HECTOR BRAVO: One
of the most feared prison gangs in the Nevada
correctional system.
00:00:45
They have no issue
executing extreme violence on other inmates. MICHAEL DICKERSON: Anthony
Williams killed somebody
00:00:52
when he was in prison,
grabbing the body and pulling it out of the cell
into the middle of the tier,
00:00:59
and they can all
see what's happened. - During the attack, Thurgood
suffered 52 stab wounds.
00:01:07
This is what happens. They're making
an example of him. It was barbaric. They then celebrate his death.
00:01:14
These are sick human beings. SAM DOUGLAS: Covering
himself with more tattoos as he racked up offenses,
Williams' appearance
00:01:22
was meant to terrify. LINA HAJI: There's
no going back. He's in this 110%.
00:01:28
He wants to be feared. PAUL LOPEZ: He shows no
mercy to any of his victims, and he never has.
00:01:35
He has a black soul
and a dark heart. [theme music] SAM DOUGLAS: Located 40
miles northwest of Las Vegas
00:02:10
is High Desert State Prison. Nevada's largest
correctional institution can hold around 4,000 inmates.
00:02:21
GARY MODAFFERI: High
Desert is very imposing. It's daunting. Barbed wire, there are
guards with guns, gun towers.
00:02:30
It's meant to send
a message, if you're here, you're staying here. RICK CHILDRESS: I have
spent time in High Desert.
00:02:38
It's a big, big prison,
and it's very intimidating when you roll through those gates.
00:02:44
- Full of inmates who a lot
of them are extremely violent. The guards are
outnumbered dramatically.
00:02:53
- They shot at us a lot,
the COs did, with live rounds. PAUL LOPEZ: There's been a long
list of violence coming out
00:03:00
of that prison that's
been documented, including inmate murders
and officer-involved shootings.
00:03:08
- It's a tough place,
no doubt about it. SAM DOUGLAS: One
of the toughest in there
00:03:13
was inmate Anthony Williams. - As a society, we
can't have an individual like Anthony Williams walking
the streets because it puts
00:03:29
the entire public in danger. HECTOR BRAVO:
Williams would have been viewed in prison as a
dominant figure and somebody
00:03:38
not to be messed with. PAUL LOPEZ: His
entire life, he's committed a variety
of different types of crimes,
00:03:44
and it's not going to change
just because he's in prison. Animals like
Williams aren't going
00:03:51
to stop committing crimes
or hunting just because you put a cage around them. SAM DOUGLAS: Anthony Williams
was born in Las Vegas in 1982.
00:04:07
Not much is known
about his childhood, but what is known is that
it wasn't a good one.
00:04:14
MICHAEL DICKERSON: What
he said is his childhood, quote, "sucked." That he was in and out
of foster care.
00:04:19
His mom was a drug addict. GARY MODAFFERI: His
father lived in the south, had separated from his
mother at an early age.
00:04:28
He had half brothers in the
south, but for some reason, they weren't connecting.
00:04:36
So he never had that
family love that we would all want and expect. LINA HAJI: A child
who has no guidance
00:04:44
and is lacking in role
models and parental figures is really learning
early on that he or she
00:04:51
has to fend for themselves. It kind of sets them
up to view the world as a very scary place.
00:04:58
And to develop without
anybody protecting you, it can result in anger,
but the child might
00:05:04
not know that they are angry. They might think that
this is normal for them. They don't know any other way.
00:05:12
GARY MODAFFERI: Anthony,
he ran wild as a child. From the time he was 12, he
was drinking and drugging,
00:05:20
and it got worse
in his late teens when he started using meth. SAM DOUGLAS: To pay
for it, Williams
00:05:28
would turn to petty crime. - He was in and out of juvenile
detention and things like that,
00:05:37
so he was being bred
for it very young. That's it, in a nutshell,
when it comes to most of us.
00:05:44
We don't have
our parents around-- the streets are
our family, and we start all doing drugs and crime.
00:05:50
And from a young age, we're
going and we're being put away. Just pain that somebody
would feel when they get
00:05:57
put in jail, it's nonexistent
to us because that pain, who are we even mourning
not being around?
00:06:06
It doesn't matter because we
don't have anything out there anyway. SAM DOUGLAS: Anthony
Williams' criminal offenses
00:06:14
continued to spiral. RICK CHILDRESS: He started
off with burglaries, like most of us.
00:06:20
You're stealing basically to
eat, to survive, to have money, and there's a lot of us
that had to do that since we
00:06:27
were 15 years old. And it can stunt your growth
in life, for sure. SAM DOUGLAS: When
he was 19, Williams
00:06:37
was convicted
in 2001 of burglary, landing him his first
spell in an adult prison.
00:06:45
Over the next
decade of his life, he would bounce in and out
of the penitentiary.
00:06:51
PAUL LOPEZ: Williams had
an extensive criminal history. He's what we refer
to as a habitual criminal.
00:06:57
His crimes started
out relatively minor, but they escalated
over the years. MICHAEL DICKERSON: In 2006,
he's convicted of a conspiracy
00:07:07
to commit larceny
from a person. Then he's arrested again in
2010 for battery and burglary,
00:07:17
and he's convicted of battery. It was also reported
that throughout his life,
00:07:23
he didn't really have a job. He was only employed
for six months back in 2006 for a construction
company,
00:07:32
and that's the only time
he had full-time work. He had, as he
reported, a daughter
00:07:38
that lived with her
mother, and that's basically his background. PAUL LOPEZ: You can't
control where you come from,
00:07:46
but you can control
decisions about where you're headed in life. And Williams has made
a series of bad decisions.
00:07:55
SAM DOUGLAS: By 2013, Williams
made another criminal decision, trying his hand at a different
kind of offense, forgery.
00:08:06
GARY MODAFFERI: The stealing
of personal identification information, usually
credit cards or other types
00:08:13
of identification. He and his confederates
were establishing what are called forgery
labs, which are essentially
00:08:21
high-tech methods by which
you could reproduce identification and perpetuate
forgery-type crimes,
00:08:28
including credit card
fraud, bank account fraud, things like that. LINA HAJI: When you assess
people for psychopathy,
00:08:37
one of the traits
of a psychopath is what we refer
to as criminal versatility. This isn't just a petty
criminal anymore.
00:08:45
Williams is now holding
positions of power. The forgery
laboratory seemingly was not only his idea,
he was in charge of it.
00:08:55
This is interesting
because this is an individual who probably
grew up feeling very lonely.
00:09:01
His mother was
addicted to drugs. His father was largely absent. He bounced around from
foster home to foster home.
00:09:10
But now he's
starting to realize that he can
interact with people in a way that can benefit him.
00:09:17
This is how he's
going to earn money. This is how he's
going to earn respect,
00:09:20
and this is how he's going to
advance in the criminal world. SAM DOUGLAS:
On the criminal scene,
00:09:27
Williams had acquired
the nickname Mugsy, and in 2015, the law caught
up with him again when
00:09:36
he was convicted
of multiple forgery charges and possession of a
firearm by a prohibited person.
00:09:43
Sentenced to serve
between 24 and 60 months, he was sent to Nevada's
notorious High
00:09:50
Desert State Prison. - It's mostly a level 5,
the highest level of security,
00:09:59
but they do have some medium
and minimum housing units. It's known as one of the two
most violent prisons in Nevada.
00:10:06
- It is a very, very
dangerous place. SAM DOUGLAS: Rick
Childress spent six and a half years in prison.
00:10:17
RICK CHILDRESS: My criminal
history is a lot of auto theft. I started very
young stealing cars.
00:10:24
I started getting busted at 18,
19 years old stealing cars. I turned 20 in prison.
00:10:29
I turned 30 in prison. SAM DOUGLAS: Rick
was at High Desert when Anthony Williams
arrived there.
00:10:38
RICK CHILDRESS: I
didn't trust him. I didn't trust Mugsy
right off the bat at all
00:10:41
when I first met him. The way he slinks
around and looks and-- like, his movement
threw me off.
00:10:49
But getting to know
Mugsy, he's actually a very decent person to know. SAM DOUGLAS:
Anthony Williams and
00:10:58
Rick had something in common. They were both members
of the Aryan Warriors. PAUL LOPEZ: The Aryan Warriors
are a white supremacist prison
00:11:08
gang that operate throughout
the Nevada penal institutions. HECTOR BRAVO:
The Aryan Warriors
00:11:15
have a reputation for being
one of the most violent and feared prison gangs in the
Nevada correctional system.
00:11:20
Reason being is
they have no issue executing extreme
violence on other inmates. RICK CHILDRESS: I'm a member
of the Aryan Warriors.
00:11:33
I'm still in good standing. I'm not active in any crime
side of anything like that.
00:11:41
I just-- I still have
people that I consider my brothers that are in prison
that I care deeply about,
00:11:48
and I care what
happens to them. We are more into the Viking
and the Odin religion
00:11:56
than we are behind the
swastikas and things like that. I have friends of all races.
00:12:08
In prison, segregation is
for avoidance of issues. They try to call us
a white supremacist group,
00:12:17
but we're far from that. It's just what the news
media has called us. And having the word "Aryan"
in our name doesn't help.
00:12:26
SAM DOUGLAS: But others
have a different opinion. PAUL LOPEZ:
The beliefs of the gang
00:12:30
are rooted in white supremacy. However, the fundamental
reason for their existence,
00:12:37
make no mistake, is power
and control and profit-- running the criminal
enterprise within the prison.
00:12:48
MICHAEL DICKERSON:
The way that it would work for Anthony
Williams and for the majority of members
of the Aryan Warriors
00:12:55
is that they would
come into prison, and then they would
be asked to tip up into the gang, which
means, hey, do you want
00:13:04
to join the Aryan Warriors? A white inmate who's identified
by the Aryan Warriors to tip
00:13:10
up is somebody who
they've already vetted. RICK CHILDRESS: There's
paperwork that you come with
00:13:16
or that you can get
from your lawyer. It shows all the crimes
that you've been
00:13:21
charged with and convicted on. It shows the circumstances
of your case, and we'd like to look at that.
00:13:29
Nobody wants to be around
somebody who has hurt a child or they have beat
their spouse so badly
00:13:35
that it sent them to prison. Hurting a pet or arson can
even be a red flag for us.
00:13:41
We don't want you around us
if you're a firebug, you know. I don't want to sleep
around somebody who
00:13:46
sets fires, things like that. So we all want to know
what you're there for. SAM DOUGLAS: Anthony
Williams had already
00:13:55
been accepted
into the Aryan Warriors during his previous
stints in prison. MICHAEL DICKERSON: The
individual that is asked to tip
00:14:04
up, who isn't just going to be
any run-of-the-mill inmate, they'd be expected
to do acts of violence
00:14:10
or anything that's ordered. They may be asked
to run a tier, in charge of running the drug
trade that they're doing there,
00:14:17
any gambling operations that
they have going on on the tier, and taking that
money and making sure
00:14:23
that it gets where
it needs to go and that the higher-ups
are getting it. LINA HAJI: We
think of gangs, and
00:14:30
we think, OK, maybe
these are just kind of violent, angry thugs. But that's not what
these gangs are.
00:14:36
These are crime syndicates
bringing in a ton of money, and they are typically
extremely well organized.
00:14:44
SAM DOUGLAS:
Anthony Williams was steadily climbing the hierarchy
of the Aryan Warriors.
00:14:54
RICK CHILDRESS: He hadn't
committed any major acts yet besides, you know,
just normal assaults,
00:14:59
things like that. But I do know that he
had that unit, though, so he was in control of all
the white population inside
00:15:07
of that building, basically. He was coming up. He was a big up and comer. SAM DOUGLAS: In his
block, Williams
00:15:17
was cellmates with a man
named Tarik Goicoechea, also known as Torque. - Tarik Goicoechea
was somebody who
00:15:26
was really just kind of coming
in to the Aryan Warriors at that time. - He's Armenian,
but he's screaming, "Nine
00:15:34
generations of Aryan blood." He had no fear. He wasn't a fearful man. Put those two men
together in the same cell
00:15:43
for that long, Torque and
Mugsy, you're asking for it. When something like Andrew
Thurgood comes along--
00:15:54
PAUL LOPEZ: Andrew Thurgood was
a 26-year-old Las Vegas native. His father described
him as being
00:16:02
both charming and artistic. At High Desert in 2016, he was
serving a three-year sentence
00:16:12
for a crime for attempted
possession of a stolen vehicle in Clark County. - It was three
years, but Nevada
00:16:23
is like a 12 to 36 months. So they call it
a three-year sentence, but really, you're
out in a year.
00:16:30
He was doing very,
very small time, and he went in with
a chip on his shoulder. He was a young man.
00:16:37
He probably thought he needed
to be a little tougher. You know, somebody
wants to fight you,
00:16:42
you got to fight them. LINA HAJI: Thurgood
and Williams seemingly crossed paths.
00:16:52
It's not exactly
clear what happened, but there was a conflict
that erupted between the two.
00:16:59
HECTOR BRAVO: Andrew Thurgood
was an inmate who stood up for another older inmate,
and that's what got
00:17:04
him involved in the conflict. People absolutely have
to consider what they get involved with in prison.
00:17:10
It's a jungle in there. It's a alpha male dominated
environment of predators.
00:17:16
It's not necessarily
common for inmates to stick up for other
inmates due to
00:17:21
they know the repercussions,
such as they can get killed. SAM DOUGLAS: There may have
been another reason Thurgood
00:17:31
gained Williams' attention. MICHAEL DICKERSON:
Andrew Thurgood, from what we gathered
through our investigation,
00:17:37
he had been associating with
another white prison gang known as the Outlaw Nazi
Skinheads, or ONS,
00:17:46
and that's a prison
gang that is a rival of the Aryan Warriors. PAUL LOPEZ: The Outlaw Nazi
Skinheads are a prison gang
00:17:54
primarily operating in Nevada. They're a white
supremacist gang, and that's their ideology.
00:18:00
- Most of the juvenile
offenders in Nevada, if they're white, they're going
to become Aryan Warriors or
00:18:07
ONS, one or the other. Andrew Thurgood, he
might have been ONS. It's hard to put
your thumb down on that,
00:18:15
and I never really asked. SAM DOUGLAS: On the morning
of February 1, 2016, 26-year-old
Andrew Thurgood called
00:18:24
his fiancée from prison. He told her he was
concerned for his safety. - He said that he
felt he was going
00:18:33
to be attacked on that day. He referred to him as the dubs. W meaning the Aryan Warriors.
00:18:39
MICHAEL DICKERSON:
Something might happen because the Aryan
Warriors are after him because of his
association
00:18:46
with the Outlaw
Nazi Skinheads and his behavior of disrespecting
the Aryan Warriors.
00:18:54
PAUL LOPEZ: His fiancée, she
asked him not to get involved. And he said he wasn't
going to start a fight,
00:19:00
but he would walk
into a cell with somebody and defend himself
if he had to. LINA HAJI: When you're
in danger in prison
00:19:09
and there's a gang hit on you,
it's absolutely terrifying. I've seen inmates
go to great lengths
00:19:20
to avoid being in the same
space as these gang members. I've seen inmates cut
themselves severely to get out
00:19:29
and go to outside hospitals. I've seen inmates commit
other crimes in order to go to the hole, because
they'd rather be in confinement
00:19:38
and segregation
where they are safe than be in general population. Because conflict
in prison with a gang
00:19:45
means either a very
serious physical assault, or it means death. SAM DOUGLAS: Yet, just hours
after talking to his fiancee,
00:19:55
Thurgood decided to meet
with Williams and Goicoechea in their unit. - They have Andrew
Thurgood come
00:20:05
over from another
wing, the D wing, and somehow he gets in there. The other inmates had described
him as maybe a little reckless.
00:20:15
Maybe he put himself
in a situation that wasn't safe at all. SAM DOUGLAS: Prison CCTV
showed Andrew Thurgood
00:20:24
walking into cell B11 along
with Williams and Goicoechea. MICHAEL DICKERSON: There is
some conflicting information
00:20:35
of how they got him over there. It could have been that they
said, we're going to fight.
00:20:41
But what we know happened is
that those three men walk in. RICK CHILDRESS: Thurgood,
he was the aggressor also.
00:20:51
Maybe he had had enough of it. Maybe they were giving
him too much of a problem or too hard of a time.
00:20:59
You make a very bad decision to
go into the cell of two known bangers for a gang, you know.
00:21:07
LINA HAJI: Now,
for somebody who's not in a correctional
setting, it's a little easy to say, well, why
did he go ahead and face them.
00:21:15
But what Thurgood understood
is that to not stand up for yourself and to show fear
in prison, you're just as much
00:21:23
of a dead man as if you
confront your attackers. So he might as well have
taken the opportunity
00:21:30
and taken the chance
of potentially surviving an attack
because they were going to get him either way.
00:21:39
SAM DOUGLAS: After the three
men walked into the cell, what exactly happened
is uncertain, but
00:21:45
there is no doubt about what
happened six minutes later. PAUL LOPEZ: You then
see Williams on video
00:21:54
dragging Thurgood's lifeless
body out of the cell and puts him basically
in the middle of the day room
00:22:04
on display. Now that not being
good enough, I guess, Tarik then exits the
cell, takes over for Williams,
00:22:12
and drags him further
into the day room area so he is clearly
more on display, not just to the inmates,
but to staff as well.
00:22:24
SAM DOUGLAS: As correctional
officers arrived, Williams and Goicoechea
shook hands and embraced.
00:22:32
GARY MODAFFERI:
They immediately submitted to the authority
of the prison guards.
00:22:37
There was no fight. There was no acting out
after that occurred. It was like, this
is done, period.
00:22:47
SAM DOUGLAS: The men
were cuffed and shackled. Williams, in his
identification photo,
00:22:52
looked pleased with himself. Andrew Thurgood
had clearly been beaten and stabbed many
times, but he started moving.
00:23:02
RICK CHILDRESS: Andrew
Thurgood's still alive, but he's been stabbed
somewhere over 50 times all
00:23:09
over his body. He is clearly in immense pain. PAUL LOPEZ: Several officers
were around Thurgood,
00:23:18
but nobody is providing any
sort of life-saving measures. He's just laying there.
00:23:26
MICHAEL DICKERSON:
Writhing in pain. It is so apparent that this
is incredibly devastating
00:23:35
to his entire
nervous system, and what he's feeling is
pain all over his body,
00:23:39
because that's where he
was stabbed, all over. Meanwhile, Anthony Williams
and Tarik Goicoechea,
00:23:45
they don't have any
injuries on them. They have some spots
of blood on their shoes and
00:23:53
their clothing,
and that's that. PAUL LOPEZ: After 12 minutes,
correctional officers
00:23:59
are seen on closed
circuit television, picking up Thurgood
to his feet and assisting
00:24:04
him to the infirmary. Thurgood complained that
he couldn't breathe. At that point,
medical staff provided
00:24:11
advanced life-saving
techniques. However, Thurgood lost his
battle and unfortunately died.
00:24:19
SAM DOUGLAS: The weapon
used to kill Andrew Thurgood was never recovered. - Investigators at the prison
speculated that it was likely
00:24:29
flushed down the toilet. SAM DOUGLAS: The autopsy showed
Andrew Thurgood was beaten and
00:24:39
stabbed 52 times in total
while he was in the cell with Williams and Goicoechea.
00:24:45
- The kid bled out, and it's
terrible and it's sad. And I'm sure, you
know, he has a mother,
00:24:52
and that's a very
sad thing for her. I don't know exactly
the beef between them,
00:24:59
but there's very few
things in my mind I could think that that kid
could have done that didn't
00:25:04
just warrant getting
hell kicked out of him instead of killing him. Torque and Mugsy, they were
putting on an exhibition
00:25:12
when they drag Andrew
Thurgood out of that cell. It was to show the rest
of the population,
00:25:20
this is what happens. They were making
an example of him. When you look
at it, it was nasty.
00:25:28
PAUL LOPEZ: To drag him out
in the middle of the day room and then celebrate, these
are sick human beings,
00:25:35
if you even want
to call them that. Andrew Thurgood, his father
said he wasn't a saint,
00:25:42
but he didn't need
to die that way. I would agree with
Thurgood's father.
00:25:46
Thurgood was in jail
for stealing a car, and he met his fate at the end
of a knife at 52 stab wounds.
00:25:54
So whatever he did, he
did not deserve that. - When you come
into prison, they put you in what we
call the fish tank,
00:26:03
but it's a classification unit. They figure out who you are. Then after you leave the fish
tank, you go to the max unit
00:26:12
while they kind
of see how you hold yourself in the population. Now, the max unit
is a terrible place
00:26:19
for this because right
off the bat, you're being thrown
to the wolves. There's better places to put
these young offenders that
00:26:27
are doing a year if they got
any notion that they're tougher than they actually are.
00:26:34
Like Andrew Thurgood, it can
cost you your life very easily. LINA HAJI: Williams
went above and beyond
00:26:40
to murder him in an extremely
violent manner and then brought his
body out for all to see,
00:26:46
and knowing that it was
captured on video camera. So what this tells me is
that Williams didn't care.
00:26:54
Williams is extremely
dangerous because thus far, as we look at his life, there's
nothing that deters him.
00:27:02
There's no kind of attempts
at rehabilitation. There's no indications
of empathy or remorse.
00:27:08
There's no indication that
additional prison time or being in the box or being
separated from his gang
00:27:15
members, nothing, no
consequence that he's experienced thus
far has stopped him from continuing to escalate
in all of his violent crimes.
00:27:28
SAM DOUGLAS:
In a surprise to many, in the years immediately
following Thurgood's death,
00:27:33
Williams and Goicoechea faced
no charges for his killing. MICHAEL DICKERSON:
The way it works
00:27:41
in Nevada is that their
investigations into prison crimes go and are submitted
for prosecution to the attorney
00:27:48
general's office. The attorney general is
a separate prosecuting agency from the Clark County
District Attorney's office.
00:27:57
This is something that
was out of my hands. SAM DOUGLAS: Emails later
obtained by news media
00:28:03
showed that a top prosecutor at
the attorney general's office was reluctant to bring
charges against the pair,
00:28:10
arguing that it
was just as likely that Thurgood was the aggressor
in coming to their cell.
00:28:17
RICK CHILDRESS: I
think Mugsy and Torque weren't prosecuted
right away because you
00:28:22
can claim self-defense. He came into my home,
invaded my house, and I stood my ground.
00:28:29
Neither one was talking. Mugsy, he wasn't going
to talk about it to anybody.
00:28:34
That's obvious. That's sort of a good way
to get a life sentence. I think he probably
felt like he might
00:28:40
have gotten away with it. SAM DOUGLAS: To add insult to
injury, with no charges brought
00:28:46
against Williams
for the attack on Thurgood, he was released from
prison in May 2018.
00:28:53
PAUL LOPEZ: Clearly, the family
was upset after the murder of Mr. Thurgood. They filed a lawsuit against
the department of corrections,
00:29:03
stating that they did
not provide medical care in a quick and efficient
manner because Mr. Thurgood was
00:29:09
allowed to lay
on the floor bleeding with 52 stab wounds
for 12 minutes. SAM DOUGLAS:
The lawsuit would later
00:29:17
be settled for an undisclosed
amount in April 2020. But back in 2018, Anthony
Williams, aged 36,
00:29:26
was a free man once more. LINA HAJI: Now he's
thinking I'm invincible. I'm untouchable.
00:29:35
Not only do consequences
not matter to me, they don't even apply to me. - When he's released,
well, turns out he doesn't
00:29:46
turn into a model citizen. He's out there committing
a series of robberies. - I think he started in, like,
Boulder City or something
00:29:55
and just went clear
across the valley, robbing every place that
he could at gunpoint.
00:30:02
PAUL LOPEZ: On July 15, 2018,
he robbed an elderly female of her purse and its contents.
00:30:09
He was acting as the getaway
driver in this incident, and they ended up, Williams
and his co-conspirator,
00:30:15
using this credit card of
the victims at a gas station. Five days later,
on July 20, 2018,
00:30:22
Williams was involved
in another robbery, this time using a firearm, where
he robbed a business
00:30:27
employee of money
and a customer of that business
of their car keys, their car, and his wallet.
00:30:34
- He was extremely dangerous. SAM DOUGLAS:
Williams' crime spree was brought to an end
just days later
00:30:45
when he was
apprehended by police. Now fully covered in tattoos,
his appearance had
00:30:52
become even more intimidating. MICHAEL DICKERSON:
This is an individual who has, on the back
of his head,
00:31:00
tattooed a picture of a police
officer being shot in the head. He has "[bleep]
cops" tattooed on his
00:31:07
knuckles and on his forehead. - This is who Williams is. He has shown a lifetime
of disrespect
00:31:14
for authority, disrespect for
rules, disrespect for the law. Tattooing his entire face
with gang symbols and
00:31:23
Aryan Warrior
symbols, it's showing that there's no going back. He's in this 110%.
00:31:30
He wants to be
feared, and that he's 110% committed to his gang. SAM DOUGLAS: Williams was
committed to prison again when
00:31:42
a jury found him
guilty of robbery charges with the use
of a deadly weapon, and he would continue
to show his lack of respect
00:31:50
for authority. MICHAEL DICKERSON:
By the time of sentencing, our office had become
aware that he'd
00:31:58
made threatening statements
about one of our prosecutors who was prosecuting that case.
00:32:03
This is Anthony Williams saying
on calls that he's hoping that she gets hit by a bus.
00:32:08
He gets sentenced
in that case, and the judge takes some
leniency on him of a sort
00:32:17
by not ordering that he have
life without the possibility of parole. - He was very upset
with the judge in court,
00:32:26
and he lashed out. I wasn't there, but I read
through the transcripts. It was quite a scene.
00:32:32
MICHAEL DICKERSON:
Anthony Williams starts going off
on the judge and saying threatening things
to the judge, calling the
00:32:40
judge names. - Talking in the most
disrespectful manner in open court
and essentially saying,
00:32:47
I don't care. Give me whatever
sentence you want. I hope you die. MICHAEL DICKERSON:
So the judge there decided
00:32:53
to change his decision
right there on the spot and sentenced him
to life without.
00:32:57
But ultimately,
that didn't last. SAM DOUGLAS:
The Court of Appeals of the Supreme Court
of Nevada decided
00:33:05
Williams needed
to be resentenced, and he was later given
the chance of parole. But he wasn't out
of the firing line yet.
00:33:14
Mike Dickerson
and the DA's office were heading up
a task force cracking down on the criminal activity
of the Aryan Warriors.
00:33:25
MICHAEL DICKERSON:
Through our investigation, we're able to get
up on wiretaps
00:33:30
on a number of individuals. We're hearing
orders being given from leadership
in the prison to set up
00:33:38
hit teams to go kill people. We ultimately were able
to prosecute 23 people that we brought a racketeering
case against for a variety
00:33:49
of crimes. We had everything from forgery
and drugs to multiple murders. The majority of the murders
that we charged
00:33:57
were murders that
were occurring on the streets of Las Vegas. It was only one
that was in prison,
00:34:02
and it's Anthony Williams'
murder of Andrew Thurgood. SAM DOUGLAS: Mike and his team
didn't buy the notion that it
00:34:11
could have been self-defense. They were determined
that Williams would finally be brought
to justice for this crime.
00:34:18
- We ultimately, through
our investigation, we were able
to uncover a pretty incredible letter that was
written by Anthony Williams.
00:34:30
SAM DOUGLAS: Andrew
Thurgood had been killed on February 1, 2016. Williams had written
to a woman the day before.
00:34:43
- This letter is dated
January 31, 2016. It's from Anthony Williams. It says, "What's up,
sexy little mama.
00:34:55
Allow me to extend big-ass
Aryan warrior love and all my respect to you full blast.
00:35:01
This is Mugsy, and I
was hoping by now to have gotten
a letter and some pics to see what you
look like, but nope.
00:35:08
So check it out. I'm not going to be Kidd's
celly anymore after tomorrow
00:35:13
because I have
to handle something, so I will be going
to the hole and then Ely.
00:35:17
So what's up? You want to be
my pen pal or what?" He's writing this girl
telling her, hey, look,
00:35:24
I'm not going to be this
other Aryan Warrior's cellmate anymore because I have
to take care of some business.
00:35:30
Go kill Andrew Thurgood. Which then he says,
I am going to be sent to the hole, which is
administrative segregation
00:35:38
unit after somebody
commits an offense inside, and then to Ely,
which at that time
00:35:43
was the maximum
security prison. So that letter showed
that this was absolutely premeditated murder.
00:35:50
PAUL LOPEZ:
Williams, as a result of the Aryan warrior
investigation, he was indicted
for racketeering.
00:35:57
He was also indicted
for murder and conspiracy to commit murder with
a dangerous weapon
00:36:03
for the murder of Thurgood. SAM DOUGLAS:
On September 11, 2019, Anthony Williams appeared in
court with other gang members
00:36:13
to answer charges. MICHAEL DICKERSON: We're here
at the Regional Justice Center
00:36:18
in Las Vegas. What happened here
is that this is where we prosecuted
the Aryan Warriors,
00:36:24
including Anthony Williams. When the case first started,
all the Aryan Warriors were really riled up in court.
00:36:32
I think, generally,
William's demeanor in court was that of a hardened
criminal, somebody
00:36:37
who had been through
the system, who expected people to respect him. Williams reaction
to all this, I think,
00:36:46
initially was probably
surprise, surprise that he was actually getting
prosecuted for the murder
00:36:53
that he committed
years earlier. PAUL LOPEZ:
The prosecution was, in fact, going to seek
the death penalty
00:36:59
for the murder of Thurgood. MICHAEL DICKERSON:
When you look at a case like this, somebody
who is already
00:37:07
in prison
for a litany of crimes and then is committing
extremely violent crimes and
00:37:15
murder in prison,
to me, it shows that there's no other
penalty that can be imposed.
00:37:24
Putting them
in prison for longer is something that is going to
probably result in more murder.
00:37:30
SAM DOUGLAS: Williams
pleaded not guilty. GARY MODAFFERI: My name
is Gary Modafferi,
00:37:35
and I was Anthony
Williams' defense attorney with
another attorney that was appointed by the courts.
00:37:42
I've been doing
this for 40 years. It's really not the norm
to see such a young man
00:37:48
with so many prior felonies. I mean, they had really
stacked up against him. Anybody who is accused
of a death penalty crime
00:37:58
knows and worries about it. I don't care how tough
you project yourself or where you've been in life.
00:38:07
When you're facing a lawyer
across the aisle, who's asking that you
be put to death,
00:38:14
the clients are put
in another lane for sure. He was, from our perspective,
a non-problem client.
00:38:24
He was good. He was good with us. HECTOR BRAVO: Williams was
very polite and charming
00:38:32
to the defense team
during the trial, which is very common for inmates to
switch up their appearance and
00:38:38
their personality in an attempt
to manipulate individuals and get them to do what they want.
00:38:44
Because ultimately,
they were trying to seek a sentence of life
without the possibility
00:38:48
of parole versus
the death penalty. SAM DOUGLAS: Eventually,
Mike's prosecuting team
00:38:55
accepted a plea deal. If Williams confessed
to Andrew Thurgood's murder, they would not seek
the death penalty.
00:39:04
MICHAEL DICKERSON:
Ultimately giving that up with him agreeing
to plead guilty and
00:39:09
spend the rest
of his life in prison without ever having
the possibility of parole.
00:39:13
The reality
of the death penalty, it is not very often imposed,
and even when it is imposed,
00:39:21
it's not very
often carried out. SAM DOUGLAS:
By now, Williams had risen to be one of the leaders
of the Aryan Warriors.
00:39:31
GARY MODAFFERI:
Anthony Williams was critical in his mind
to maintain his stature
00:39:35
in the Aryan Warriors. What stuck out to me
was his undying loyalty to this organization.
00:39:43
I mean, it was unwavering. - Because of the plea
deal that Mugsy took, Torque only got 10 years.
00:39:50
MICHAEL DICKERSON: Anthony
Williams ended up taking complete responsibility. The idea that only one
of them committed this
00:40:00
is not one that I subscribe to. But we know Anthony Williams
is an extremely violent
00:40:07
individual, and I have no
doubt that Anthony Williams inflicted stab wounds
on Andrew Thurgood.
00:40:20
SAM DOUGLAS: Sentenced
to life without parole, Williams, as he'd predicted
in his letter years before,
00:40:26
was finally sent
to Nevada's Ely prison. MICHAEL DICKERSON: It was
the highest security prison
00:40:33
that we had in the state. The most violent
inmates that posed the biggest threat
to the system
00:40:39
would be within
Ely State Prison. RICK CHILDRESS: Mugsy
seemed, by this point, to be more comfortable
being in prison.
00:40:46
He understood, at this
point, he's not getting out ever again unless he escapes.
00:40:51
Mugsy had written himself into
being a gang leader in prison for the rest of his life.
00:40:59
- Some criminals actually
are comfortable in prison. This is the environment that
they know how to navigate.
00:41:07
For Williams, he doesn't have a
problem serving time in prison. And on top of that,
there's a likelihood
00:41:14
that he will continue to engage
in criminal activity in prison. He has his people.
00:41:20
He has his gang. This is the life he's going
to live until he dies. PAUL LOPEZ: On July 30, 2024,
the White Pine County Sheriff's
00:41:33
office received a call
stating that there was a large fight that was in
progress at Ely State Prison.
00:41:39
Nine inmates were
injured and transported to nearby medical facilities
outside of the prison.
00:41:46
Three died from their injuries. MICHAEL DICKERSON:
Aryan Warriors were targeted by members
of the Sureños gang.
00:41:56
I had never heard
of there being three inmates killed
in a single event at a Nevada prison.
00:42:05
SAM DOUGLAS: The word
on the street was that in retaliation
for a member being killed
00:42:09
in a Las Vegas
shooting, the Sureños, a Mexican-American
gang, had ordered their members at Ely
prison to attack any inmate
00:42:18
who was an Aryan Warrior. Rick has been told
a version of what went down. - They went after Mugsy,
who was the number one, and
00:42:29
Little Dog, his number two. They had three treys
apiece strapped around them, body armor.
00:42:39
I couldn't believe
they got Mugsy. And for him to walk
out of the cell and to see them wearing
their coats in the day room
00:42:47
should have been a red flag. I've heard that
they called him over and said, hey, look at this.
00:42:51
They have some drugs
over here or whatever. And when Mugsy looked
down, they got him.
00:43:00
And they killed Little Sin. Little dog was
the only one left, and he strapped two
knives to his hands
00:43:08
and went out into the day
room and faced 13 guys and put six of them
on helicopters before they
00:43:15
almost decapitated him. SAM DOUGLAS: Whatever
the exact version of events, Anthony Williams was killed,
age 41, a violent end
00:43:27
to a violent life. LINA HAJI: It
sounds very harsh, but we think of sayings like
"you reap what you sow,"
00:43:32
or "you live by the gun,
you die by the gun--" it was pretty much
inevitable that
00:43:36
his time was going to come. MICHAEL DICKERSON: I do not
believe that Anthony Williams
00:43:41
could have been rehabilitated. That ship had sailed. He'd been given
those opportunities.
00:43:45
There was no rehabilitation
to be had whatsoever. HECTOR BRAVO: He
showed zero remorse
00:43:51
after killing Thurgood,
going out to the streets and not reforming his life
but continuing a life of crime.
00:44:02
LINA HAJI: He did
horrific, evil things. Was he a product of his
neglectful childhood?
00:44:08
Was he predisposed to violence? We really don't know. But what we do know is that
he made a conscious decision
00:44:15
in adulthood
to perpetuate crime and to perpetuate violence. In my opinion, that
certainly makes him evil.
00:44:24
PAUL LOPEZ: In my opinion,
he has a black soul and a dark heart, and ultimately,
that cost him his life,
00:44:32
and he got what he deserved. [theme music]