Ex-boyfriend guilty of murdering 16-year-old girl in 2006 cold case, sentenced to prison
A jury found Ralph Williams guilty of first-degree murder Thursday evening in the 2006 death of 16-year-old Amber Woods, his ex-girlfriend.
The 38-year-old Hardee County man was found guilty after the jury deliberated for about four hours following a weeklong trial presided over by Judge Lee Haworth at the Manatee County Judicial Center in downtown Bradenton.
Williams has been sentenced to life in prison.
The guilty verdict comes more than two months after Ralph’s brother, 35-year-old Tyjuan Williams, was found guilty of second-degree murder in June for killing Amber. Tyjuan was also sentenced to life in prison, according to court records.
The investigation into the teenager’s murder went cold until 2020 when the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office used cell phone technology to place suspects at the scene of the murder.
Cell phone records were key evidence during the trial, most notably with the prosecutors pointing to a call made by Amber to Ralph’s phone at 2:55 a.m. during the early hours on Feb. 11 when the victim was suspected by law enforcement to have already been dead.
“Amber is dead at 2:55 a.m.,” Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell told the courtroom during closing statements.
Phone records crack cold case
But Ralph Williams’ defense attorney Jervis Wise countered the state’s theory that this was a butt dial from Ralph, who prosecutors say was in possession of Amber’s phone after the killing. Wise argued that theory holds no merit, citing the fact that accidental phone calls usually result in long voicemails where you can hear people talking in the background.
“That’s not what happened,” said Wise.
He also pointed to a lack of DNA or physical evidence, saying that law enforcement and the prosecution cast their suspicion on Ralph early on and have been trying to “fit a round peg into a square hole” ever since.
But the prosecution said the lack of DNA should not be surprising in this case as there weren’t signs of a struggle and it “wasn’t that kind of a murder.”
Ralph’s half-brother, Jamaine Brown, took to the stand during the trial and testified against his brother, as he had previously done during June’s trial of Tyjuan Williams.
The defense spent much of their closing remarks attempting to discredit Brown as a witness, pointing to what Wise called an “admitted methamphetamine addiction” at the time of the murder, as well as Brown being registered as a sex offender after a 2003 conviction of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 16, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement website.
But prosecutors argued that Brown’s status as a sex offender is precisely what made Brown the perfect fall guy for Ralph, saying that he knew Brown wouldn’t say anything because he couldn’t afford to get in trouble. Brown was “disposable” to Ralph, they said, also pointing to the fact that Ralph called Tyjuan his brother on the stand but referred to Brown by his first and last name.
Siblings sentenced for killing 16-year-old
In May 2020, Brown was charged with kidnapping Amber after a witness to the kidnapping identified him as the man seen arguing with Amber outside her home in the early hours of the day she went missing, according to court records. The witness said Brown ordered her to get into the car, according to court records.
As part of a plea deal, on Nov. 2, Brown detailed the kidnapping and murder during a recorded interview.
Amber’s body was discovered in Manatee County on Feb. 11, 2006, at around 7:30 a.m. when she was spotted by a driver along State Road 62, about three miles from the Hardee County line. She had a single gunshot wound to her back, investigators say.
She was last seen by her aunt at their home in the 3100 block of State Road 62 in Hardee County.
Nearly 14 years after Amber was murdered, Tyjuan, 35, was arrested in 2020 with his older brother and Amber’s then on-again-off-again boyfriend, Ralph, and his half-brother, Brown.
Investigators say Ralph was in a relationship with Amber and believed she was pregnant in February 2006. At the time, Ralph wanted to end the relationship but was worried he would face charges for a sexual relationship with a minor, prosecutors said.
That’s when the prosecution said Ralph, who was 20 years old at the time, conspired with his brothers Tyjuan and Brown to kidnap Amber and kill her. Prosecutors said Jamaine drove his half-brothers Ralph and Tyjuan, along with Amber, to a rural location alongside State Road 62, three miles outside of Hardee County.
Text messages between Amber and Ralph a week before she was found dead in Manatee County revealed a conversation about her being pregnant and his fear of facing criminal charges, investigators said.
While Tyjuan was convicted of pulling the trigger, Ralph was tried as a principal to murder because investigators say he helped lure Amber to her death.
An autopsy would later confirm that Amber was not pregnant.
