DeKalb grandmother’s body not found, but police find clues to death

There was so much blood, there was no way Millicent Williams could have survived, according to DeKalb County police. But where was her body?

More than a week after the 78-year-old was reported missing, the search continued Monday to find her. Her grandson has been charged with murder based on what investigators say has been found.

There was blood on her bed and on the floor, bloody sheets in the garage, and her silver 2014 Toyota Corolla was missing from her Decatur-area home, according to arrest warrants. Williams’ grandson who lived with her, Gregory Williams, was also gone. Days later, he was spotted driving his grandmother’s car, which had more blood inside and muddy tires. Inside the trunk, there were music CDs, some of them broken as though whatever had been placed on top was too heavy, according to police.

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When Gregory Williams was arrested, the 36-year-old had a bloody knife. He has told police he’ll tell them where his grandmother’s body is when he has an attorney, an arrest warrant states. But the lone suspect is not cooperating with investigators, leaving the woman’s family and community wanting answers.

“It would make it a lot easier for us if he were to cooperate and were to tell us exactly what happened and where Mrs. Williams is,” Shiera Campbell, DeKalb police spokesman, said Monday.

Though uncommon, others have been convicted of murder in Georgia even though a body was never found.

“You can prove the murder happened by circumstantial evidence,” J. Tom Morgan, former DeKalb County district attorney, said Monday.

In June 1992, Charles Thomas White III was found guilty of murder in Gwinnett County and sentenced to life in prison in one of the first cases in the state where a body was not located.

White testified that he was drugged at Randy Beck’s Norcross condominium and awoke to find Beck performing oral sex on him. When White pulled away, Beck became apologetic but then pulled a kitchen knife, White said. White twisted the knife from Beck’s hand, he said, wrestled him to the floor and put the blade in front of his face. After killing Beck, White said he dumped the body along Ga. 400, but he couldn’t remember where.

More recently, a south Georgia man was convicted in 2014 of killing his cousin 23 years earlier, though no body was ever found.

In the latest case, investigators believe Gregory Williams forced his way into his grandmother's bedroom and attacked her with a "Rambo-style" knife, warrants say. Then, he allegedly put Millicent Williams in the trunk of her own car before dumping her body and continuing to drive the car, according to police.

Investigators were able to determine Millicent Williams’ cell phone was last at a park about three miles away from her home. That park and the vicinity have been searched for several days with dogs, all-terrain vehicles and divers.

DeKalb fire Capt. Eric Jackson, a member of the dive team, told Channel 2 Action News the water in a pond at the park is very murky. But divers thoroughly searched the water without finding Millicent Williams.

“I mean, as soon as you stepped off into the water in some spots there was a drop off of two to four feet and if there wasn’t a drop off you stepped into very silty mud essentially where your foot nearly sank a foot or two,” Jackson said.

A possible motive hasn't been released. But police records show Millicent Williams previously feared her grandson would hurt her, and he had previously threatened to kill her.

Between July 2011 and September 2014, officers were called six times to the home, and Millicent Williams was granted temporary protective orders twice against her grandson, police and court records showed. Williams often blamed her grandson’s behavior on his military service.

Gregory Williams enlisted in the Army in November 1999 and was a petroleum lab specialist at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, according to a military spokeswoman. Williams served until 2002, earning a national defense service medal, Army service ribbon, and parachutist badge.

Though his grandmother believed he’d served in Iraq, Gregory Williams was never deployed, the Army said Friday. He was being held Monday without bond at the DeKalb jail.

After temporarily halting the search Monday for the missing grandmother, investigators planned to review evidence and resume searching Tuesday morning.

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