Jeremy Tremaine Williams, center, sexually abused and murdered Kamarie Holland, left, investigators said. The victim’s mother, Kristy Marie Siple, right, took payment for the abuse. (Image of Kamarie: Columbus, Ga., Police Department; screenshot: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer; mug shot of Siple: Russell County Sheriff’s Office)
A man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to capital murder charges for sexually abusing and killing a 5-year-old girl, but because of the way Alabama law works, prosecutors must still prove the homicide case before a jury because it is a capital offense, according to Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
Jeremy Tremaine Williams, 39, is set for trial scheduled for begin April 8. The victim’s mother, Kristy Marie Siple, aka Kristy Hoskins, 37, pleaded guilty to human trafficking, also on Wednesday, and she agreed to testify against her co-defendant.
“All we did today is evidence that he is guilty, but it is not proof that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Williams’ attorney, Charles Floyd III, told the news outlet.
Siple reported her daughter, Kamarie Holland, 5, missing from Columbia, Georgia. The child was found slain at a home in an abandoned home in nearby Phenix City, Alabama. in December 2021. Authorities said Williams recorded the abuse.
At the time, Siple emphatically denied wrongdoing.
“I’m a mommy,” Siple told local ABC affiliate WTVM in a Dec. 15, 2021, interview. “I did not have nothing to do with this. She was my life. I lived for her daily. She was my only girl. I have three boys and her.”
And yet Siples on Wednesday pleaded guilty to human trafficking because she sold Kamarie to Williams for sexual abuse. She made the plea and agreed to testify against Williams in exchange for 20 years in prison and her murder case being dropped, though the court has yet to do the sentencing.
“If you can’t count on your mom, who can you count on?” Russell County District Attorney Rich Chancy told reporters after court after being asked whether people could fairly described Siple as a “monster,” according to the Ledger-Enquirer.
“Monster” is the word that Kamarie’s father used for Siple after the initial charges.
“She’s a monster,” Corey Holland told Columbus, Georgia, CBS affiliate WRBL in a statement in a Dec. 29, 2021, report. “A real mother protects and would die for her children. Kristy is a monster. My family and I will continue to wrestle with the loss of losing our angel Kamarie. We will ask that you continue to make your news about her and the justice she deserves.”
Williams reportedly changed his plea on Wednesday without a deal from prosecutors.
When Judge David Johnson asked him why he was pleading guilty, Williams said, “To expedite the process.”
Asked if he had a reason to expedite it, he said no.
Jurors do not have to review his guilty plea as to the charges of producing obscene material, abusing a corpse, first-degree human trafficking, and conspiracy to commit human trafficking.
Prosecutors, however, must still prove the homicide case, with separate capital murder counts for Williams killing her, killing her during a kidnapping, killing her while committing first-degree rape, and killing her while committing first-degree sodomy.
Williams faces death or life without the possibility of parole if convicted.
According to Alabama law:
A defendant who is indicted for a capital offense may plead guilty to it, but the state, only in cases where the death penalty is to be imposed, must prove the defendant’s guilt of the capital offense beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. The guilty plea may be considered in determining whether the state has met that burden of proof.
He previously pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but attorneys on Wednesday reportedly said he was found competent for trial in two psychological evaluations. Williams in court said he was mentally competent when killing the child.
Williams has a history of being charged with abusing children.
He sexually assaulted another victim, a 6-year-old girl, “numerous” times in the summer of 2021, either at the home on 15th Avenue or at a motel in Phenix City, Alabama, prosecutor Malory Hatfield reportedly said. The girl apparently feared stepping forward because Williams threatened to get her put in juvenile detention. Williams pleaded guilty to sodomy and abuse involving a child younger than 12.
He was acquitted in Alabama in 2009 for allegedly putting a boy in scalding hot water, burning him severely while babysitting.
And he was charged in Alaska with second-degree murder in December 2022 for his 1-month-old daughter, Naudia Trenice Williams, dying in his care in 2005.
Cops in the city of North Pole found the baby’s death suspicious because she suffered blunt force injuries and she had been with her father while the mother was at work, but the manner of death was officially undetermined and Williams allegedly cut off investigators and refused to take a polygraph test, according to The Anchorage Daily News.
He and the mother moved away months later, but authorities said that when Alabama cops investigated him years later in Kamarie’s death, he admitted to killing Naudia by striking her and throwing her down stairs because she was crying.
“The defendant says he does not know what is wrong with him but a child that keeps crying just does something to him,” documents reportedly said.
Police started reinvestigating the 2005 Alaska death based on what Williams reportedly said during the investigation into Kamarie’s death. That case is ongoing.
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