ANASTASIA WILLIAMS - 3 yo - / Arrested: Father - Robert Marquis Lamar Williams - Hurst, TX

Hurst police accuse father of killing 3-year-old daughter

By Domingo Ramirez, Jr.
Posted Tuesday, Apr. 09, 2013


BY DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.
ramirez@star-telegram.com

A 3-year-old girl, crying in her bedroom because she was hungry, screamed "Daddy!" when her father stormed into the room and slammed the door, according to an arrest warrant affidavit written by Hurst police and obtained by the Star-Telegram Tuesday.
A witness told police that he then heard thumps and thuds for 30 to 45 seconds. The noises sounded like something was hitting the floor, he said.
That was the night of March 21.
The next afternoon, emergency responders found the child, Anastasia Williams, dead in her bed.
On Tuesday, Hurst police arrested Robert Marquis Lamar Williams, 27, accusing him of killing his daughter.
Williams remained in the Hurst jail Tuesday with bail set at $100,000. Detectives expect to seek a charge of murder-serious bodily injury against Williams, police said.
Williams has adamantly denied killing Anastasia, the affidavit states.
In one interview, when detectives told him that evidence pointed to him, Williams laughed and started eating ice out of a cup.
Asked to give detectives anything to show that he didn't kill her, Williams said, "I wish I could, but I can't."
Williams did get upset at being called a bad father, saying he did the best he could.
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Anastasia's mother lives in another state, and his daughter had been living with him since November 2011, Williams told police.
They lived with Williams' girlfriend and her son in an apartment in the 800 block of Cullum Court off Precinct Line Road north of Texas 10 in Hurst.
The affidavit included a description of the apartment. It was filthy and in disarray with no furniture in the living room. Old food was out on a kitchen table and counter tops.The water had been turned off, and the family kept water jugs for bathing. Anastasia was bathed once a week.
There was little or no food in a refrigerator, and clothing throughout the apartment appeared soiled.
Neighbors interviewed by Hurst police said they often heard Williams yelling and screaming, and Anastasia crying, "No, Daddy, no!"
Child Protective Services reported no record of previous contact with the family.
Investigators determined that only three people were in the apartment with Anastasia on March 21-22 -- Williams, his girlfriend and her son. Within days, the girlfriend and her son were eliminated as suspects because of alibis and evidence.
On the night of March 21, Williams became agitated about Anastasia's crying, the affidavit states. He smoked marijuana even though he knew he had to take a drug test the next morning at a job interview. He planned to use urine from his daughter.
Sometime that night, Williams went into the crying child's bedroom, and the girlfriend's son heard the thumping sounds.
The son told police he never heard Anastasia again and didn't see her up the next day.
When he checked on her in the early afternoon, she was cold, he told police. He fled the apartment because he was scared of Williams, who might think he had killed the girl. Also, he said, he had marijuana he didn't want authorities to find.
Williams' girlfriend was at work. Williams told detectives he fed his daughter a hot dog for breakfast, took lunch to his girlfriend and returned home and took a nap.
In mid-afternoon, Williams alerted a neighbor that Anastasia was not breathing and called 911.
Emergency responders found her dead shortly before 3:30 p.m. in her bedroom.
Her death was caused by an injury to her abdomen that lacerated her liver, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner's website, which ruled her death a homicide.
The medical examiner's office later told Hurst detectives that Anastasia most likely was punched or kicked multiple times.
Williams told detectives that he spanked Anastasia probably once a day and that he sometimes turned up the sound on the TV to drown out her crying.
In interviews, he showed no remorse or emotion over his daughter's death, detectives wrote in the affidavit.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/04/09/4761727/father-arrested-accused-of-killing.html#storylink=cpy