Boyfriend thought teen was pregnant, so he conspired with brothers to kill her, sheriff says
Sixteen-year-old Amber Woods’ boyfriend thought she was pregnant in February 2006 when he wanted to end their relationship. Fearing he would face criminal charges because of her age, Ralph Williams, 20 years old at the time, conspired with his brothers to kidnap the teen and kill her, Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells announced on Monday morning.
Jamaine Brown drove his half-brothers Ralph and Tyjuan Williams and Amber to a rural location alongside State Road 62, just three miles from Hardee County, where the teen girl lived.
“They got out of the car, and Tyjuan shot Amber once in the back,” Wells said. “Jamaine and Ralph then dragged her deceased body off the roadway into the high grass, before fleeing the scene.”
At about 7:30 a.m. on Feb. 11, 2006, a driver spotted the girl’s body about 20 feet from State Road 62. Amber had last been seen by her aunt seven hours before at their home in the 3100 block of State Road 62 in Hardee County.
An autopsy would later confirm that Amber was not pregnant.
Last week, homicide detectives charged Ralph Williams, 35, and Tyjuan Williams, 32, with second-degree murder. Ralph Williams was in custody in Polk County on unrelated charges while Tyjuan Williams was in custody in Hardee County on unrelated charges at the time they were charged, according to Wells, and are awaiting extradition.
Detectives had developed the three brothers as suspects early in the case but were not able to collect enough evidence to charge them at the time.
The Manatee Homicide Investigation Unit began to look at the case again in April 2019, even offering an additional reward of $10,000 thanks to the Gold Star Club of Manatee County for information that would lead to an arrest.
Using previously unavailable cellular tracking software, a crime scene analyst compiled a diary of the night of the killing, which placed a cellphone used by Ralph Williams in the vicinity of where Amber’s body was found. That gave the detectives the new direction needed to solve the case.
On May 20, detectives charged Jamaine Brown with kidnapping. A witness to the kidnapping identified Brown as the man seen arguing with Amber outside her home in the early morning hours of Feb. 11, 2006, and ordering her to get into the car, according to the arrest warrant affidavit filed in the case against Brown.
As part of a plea deal, on Nov. 2, Brown detailed the kidnapping and murder during a recorded interview.
Brown pleaded no contest on Friday to accessory to murder after the fact, according to court records. Brown’s plea agreement and immunity letter from the U.S. Department of Justice has been sealed by court order.
“These detectives were never going to quit searching. We knew. We knew we had enough to build a case,” Wells said. “We always believed that these three murderers were in cahoots together and were trying to do everything they could to conceal the fact that they had murdered Amber and they went the last several years like nothing ever happened.”
Amber’s body was staged to make it appear she had been sexually assaulted, according to a complaint in Brown’s case. The medical examiner, however, determined that Amber had not been assaulted.
Crystal Moses, Amber’s sister, stood arm and arm with Maggie Taylor, their cousin, at Monday’s news conference as she expressed gratitude to all those involved in making the arrests.
“We are ecstatic. Justice has been proven, it’s just taken a long time,” Moses said. “As you know, her life ended and they continued to be able to walk the streets and live their lives. Well now, we can walk in peace and they won’t have that right, just like she didn’t. I think we get justice from that.”
Moses said their family never gave up on getting justice for Amber, and were committed to following the cases.
“They took something that could never be replaced ever,” she said. “I hope they rot in hell.”
Text messages between Amber and Ralph Williams a week before she was found dead revealed the conversation about her being pregnant and his fear of facing criminal charges, according to that same affidavit. Detectives believed Williams’ fear arose because Brown was a designated sexual predator after a 2003 conviction for lewd and lascivious molestation of a victim 16 years old or younger .
The sheriff’s office put the case together with the assistance of the FBI, the Wauchula Police Department, the Hardee and Polk sheriff’s offices, Hardee County Probation & Parole, the State Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
This story was originally published December 21, 2020 at 8:06 AM.
