A Florida man who spent more than four decades in prison for a murder he didn't commit has died four years after his exoneration, The Messenger reports. A funeral for Clifford Williams Jr. was held at a Jacksonville church on Saturday (January 20) after he spent most of his life behind bars for the killing of a woman he didn't know.
Williams and his nephew Nathan Myers were wrongfully convicted of murdering Jeanette Williams and injuring her girlfriend Nina Marshall back in 1976. He was sentenced to death despite compelling physical evidence and dozens of testimonies indicating he wasn't the murderer.
Both men were exonerated in 2019 after Myers reached out to Florida State Attorney Melissa Nelson with evidence proving they were innocent. Investigators reopened the case and learned another man confessed to killing Williams before he died in 1994, according to reporters.
“I’ve seen this man hurt. I’ve seen this man cry. He was a lovely man. Everybody loved Clifford Williams, but the law,” Myers told WJXT. “He was like a father, not an uncle. He taught me survival. He was a good man.”
Family members and loved ones mourned both the loss of Williams and the time they could never get back.
“He didn’t get to walk me down the aisle. He wasn’t there when his grandchildren were born,” Tracy Magwood, Williams' daughter, said. “We’re going to honor him by doing what he wanted to do, which is prison ministry.”
Williams' family also plans on starting a scholarship fund for children whose parents are incarcerated, according to reporters.
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