ST. LOUIS, MO (October 21, 2024) — Darris K. Williams, 37, pleaded guilty Friday to first-degree involuntary manslaughter and first-degree kidnapping in the 2021 death of 41-year-old Lynette Lecates in the city’s Bevo Mill neighborhood. Williams was sentenced by St. Louis Circuit Judge Calea Stovall-Reid to 10 years for manslaughter and five-years to be served concurrently for kidnapping. His case had been scheduled for trial this week.

On May 23, 2021, Williams and co-defendant Anthony D. Newberry, 30, stole Lecates’s debit card but could not use it because they did not have her pin number. When she refused to give it to them, they beat her severely and forced her into the trunk of Newberry’s car. Lecates was disabled and on dialysis. They drove to a park where they opened the trunk and beat her again. She tried to run away but was caught, beaten again and forced back into the trunk.

Newberry then drove to an industrial area where he and Williams again beat Lecates, ripped her dialysis port out of her chest, and left her for dead beside railroad tracks. Police responding to 911 calls found Lecates unconscious and took her to a local hospital. She remained in a coma until she died more than two weeks later from complications of blunt force trauma to her head.

After Newberry pleaded guilty in August, Judge Stovall-Reid sentenced him to 20 years in prison for second-degree murder plus fifteen years to be served concurrently for first-degree kidnapping. He has another case pending for his role in holding an unarmed corrections officer hostage on August 22, 2023, while Newberry was incarcerated in the City Justice Center.

The cases were prosecuted by Chief of Homicide (former Violent Crime Unit Supervisor) Tanja Engelhardt.

Williams’ case number is 2122-CR01144-01; Newberry’s case number is 2122-CR01123-01.

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