Proclaiming His Innocence

On the evening of December 8, 1982, Debbie Sue Carter would go out to a bar and would end up getting raped and murdered. 5 whole years later, Ron, and his friend Dennis Fritz, would be arrested on what many called a ‘flimsy testimony.’ It would seem that police were desperate to find her murderer and a so-called ‘expert in hair analysis’ had claimed that 13 out of 17 hairs found at the crime scene belonged to that of Ron and Fritz. During their trial, the two men would be found guilty, and while Williamson received the death penalty, Fritz got life imprisonment. Williamson would remain on death row for a full 11 years, just days away from the date of his supposed execution, while the whole time, he was insisting he was innocent.

A Book About His Life

Finally, after a number of appeals in their case, the two wrongly accused men were cleared via DNA testing. On April 15, 1999, they were finally released from jail, even though many still believed that they were still guilty of the crime. New York Times Author, John Grisham even wrote a book about Ron’s story. But sadly, Ron would end up dying from cirrhosis only 5 years later, while Grisham’s book went on to become a major best seller.