DEVON and IAN WILLIAMS - 7 and 3 yo (2007) - Rowland Heights (N of Anaheim) CA

Ian Williams would have been 7 years old today but instead his mother is going on trial for his murder.On Aug. 8, 2007, Ian, then 3, his brother Devon, 7, and their father Neal Williams, 27, were found dead in their condominium in the 18200 block of Camino Bello in Rowland Heights. Wife and mother Manling Williams, 30, is accused of premeditated murder and charged with striking her husband 97 times with a sword, then suffocating the children with pillows as they lay in their beds.She could be sentenced to death if convicted.

"I'm relieved that something is moving forward," said Jan Williams, Neal's mother and the boys' grandmother.But after three years of court hearings and delays, there's a sense of dread too."Now it feels like it's rushing at me at warp speed because I've gotten so used to nothing happening. So now that it is, it's shocking," she said.Prosecutors said three years isn't an excessively long time to wait for a trial where the defendant faces the death penalty."We've had cases that have taken longer to go to trial," said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office. "Two or three years, especially in a death penalty case, is not unusual at all."Jan Williams said she is waiting for answers to emerge in court just like everyone else."I'm anxious too, because I know it's going to be painful," she said.She's attended countless hearings and pretrial conferences leading up to Monday, she said."This time next week I will either be standing on the edge of a murder trial or facing another heartbreaking delay. I dread both and don't know how I'll cope with either," the 53-year-old wrote in a post on her blog, "Grief's Journey."Manling Williams' defense team filed numerous motions asking the case be dismissed, evidence suppressed and requesting investigators be removed from the case, Jan Williams said."I just wish I could have gotten it over with, like peeling off a Band-Aid. But that's the way the process goes," she said.She said she understands why a death-penalty case requires a long time to prepare."They want to make sure that down the line, for appeals, that everything has been done properly," she said. "So you know in your head there's a reason behind it, that they're trying to do everything right, but emotionally, it's a difficult process."Defense attorney Haydeh Takasugi said she couldn't comment on the pending trial and couldn't say whether Manling Williams will take the stand."We found ourselves in the middle of a case that is absolutely tragic and two families have been destroyed," Takasugi said.At a preliminary hearing nearly two years ago, Takasugi argued Manling's actions occurred in a fit of anger."There was no planning," Takasugi said during the hearing. "There was a fight that ensued between she and her husband. She was enraged."At the hearing, Los Angeles County sheriff's Homicide Sgt. Donald Walls said Manling admitted to the killings and described the scene he found in the Williams condominium early Aug. 8, 2007.Manling told detectives she'd come home from a night out at T.G.I. Friday's to find Neal on his computer. The couple got into an argument that ended with Manling slapping and punching her husband, Walls testified.Neal then fell asleep on his back in their bedroom and Manling took a sword from his collection and slashed him across the chest, waking him, Walls testified.She followed him down the hallway, striking him with the sword until he collapsed. Wall said Williams told detectives she then went into the children's rooms and smothered them.Neighbor James Brown, then 19, said he awoke that morning to the sound of Manling screaming. He found her outside her home, with her hands and feet covered in blood.He went inside and found Neal's body at the top of the stairs and the children lifeless in their beds, he had said.Jan Williams said she hopes the end of the trial will let her spend more time remembering her son and grandchildren they way they lived, rather than the way they died."To not have to be constantly reminded of those last few minutes of their lives, how they died, as if the rest of their lives weren't important," Jan Williams said. "I would rather think about them as they were and all the wonderful memories I have of them than that tiny, tiny part of who they were."
Changes and hurdlesHaving family members murdered has changed life in many ways for Jan Williams."You feel a little isolated sometimes," she said, "You become sort of a pariah because if murder can happen to you it can happen to anybody. People can't deal with the fact that it can happen to you so people stop talking to you."She's found some comfort in blogging her experiences and getting to know other people in similar situations through support groups such as Parents of Murdered Children.Besides being dragged through the legal system, Jan Williams has had to deal with other subsequent hurdles along with her grief.Because Neal and his sons were allegedly murdered by their wife and mother created complications with his life insurance policy, according to court documents.Manling Williams was listed as a beneficiary on the policy, and though she is a suspect in the slayings, she has not been convicted in a court of law.Neal Williams' life insurance company, Primerica, had to file a lawsuit in order to make a payment to the surviving family members without also making a payment to Manling Williams, according to Jan Williams and court documents.The case came to a close in September 2009, and insurance payments were made, after Manling Williams signed a document disclaiming any right to the insurance money, records show.Neal Williams died without a will, however, and the funds remain tied up in probate, Jan Williams said.Meantime Jan was let go from her job at Whittier College after taking a leave because of the murder."I tried three different times to go back to work," she said. "The last time I kind of had a breakdown because we'd just been allowed into the apartment to start going through their stuff. I was doing that every night and I was kind of a mess."The college eliminated her position while she was on a 12-week disability leave, she said.She worked part-time at a day care that has since closed and said trying to get another job or go back to school has been near impossible because of the looming trial."How do you get a new job and then tell people I may have to be out for two or three months for a murder trial?" she said.She is now being supported by family members.Williams added she feels for Manling's family as well."Her family has been traumatized," she said. "They've lost just as much as I have."
Remembering
Family members have described Neal Williams as a dedicated, loving father who was contemplative, easy-going and had a passion for reading.Devon was remembered as a sweet child who wanted everyone to be happy and Ian was lively and always on the go.The boys and their father were reading the Harry Potter series together when the murder occurred.Jan Williams said Ian's birthday and the trial date created a difficult coincidence."He would have been in second grade," she said. "Devon would be in fifth. They would have been joining the Little League or maybe learning to play the piano. They never had a chance to do that."

11/03/2010 08:58:52 PM EDT

POMONA - Attorneys asked a jury Wednesday to decide whether a woman killed her husband and children in a fit of rage or if she coldly and methodically murdered them in an attempt to free herself from family life. The difference determines whether jurors choose second-degree murder or first degree murder - life in prison or the potential for the death penalty.

Closing arguments were heard Wednesday in the Manling Williams case, where the 31-year-old is on trial for having stabbed and slashed her husband, Neal, 92 times with a sword in their Rowland Heights home on Aug. 7, 2007. She also smothered her children Devon, 7, and Ian, 3, with a pillow that night.


Man-ling Williams, 27, of Rowland Heights enters the West Covina Courthouse Aug. 10, 2007 where her arraignment on three counts of homicide in connection with the deaths of her husband and two children was continued.

"She felt like a cold-hearted bitch because she committed three cold blooded murders," Deputy District Attorney Stacy Okun-Wiese said to start her argument, referencing what Williams told deputies in a taped confession.

The defense didn't argue against Williams' guilt, but differed on the extent of which she is guilty. Defense Attorney Tom Althaus said Williams didn't premeditate the murder of her family and instead acted in a fit of rage.

"I'm not trying to make excuses or condone anything in this case," he said. "The District Attorney's claim, of course, is this has to do with premeditation. You have to decide if that is what is going on or if something else is going on."

Althaus said the majority of the prosecution's case was based on circumstantial evidence and assumptions.

Considering those issues, the jury should find the defendant guilty of second-degree murder, he said. "The whole idea she didn't want to be with her kids ... where does that come from?" Althaus said. "There is not enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that she wanted to kill her husband and her kids," prior to the night of the murders.

Okun-Wiese said Williams had grown obsessed with a former high school sweetheart with whom she had an affair with a month before the murders, according to testimony. He had broken the affair off days later, but said he would consider rekindling the relationship if Williams was divorced.

"We have a motive where a defendant wants to be single ... but you think to yourself `is that really a reason for a person to kill and slash her husband and suffocate her kids?"' Okun-Wiese said. "This may be something you never wrap your fingers around."

Althaus said there was something wrong with the family environment, and that, mixed with a deteriorating marriage, lead to Williams' rage.

"It is literally unbelievable these folks could live in these kinds of conditions," he said of the trash-filled home shown in pictures.


This undated handout photo shows Neal Williams and his sons Devon and Ian reading a book. Man-Ling Willimas is suspected of killing her husband and her two sons inside their Rowland Heights apartment in early August 2007. (Photo courtesy of Williams family)


The prosecution tried to show Williams' actions leading up to the murders as calculated attempts to eventually pin the children's murder on her husband. Williams told friends as much as two months prior to the murders that she was having dreams where Neal suffocated the children and then killed himself, according to testimony.

"Coincidentally, her children were suffocated to death," Okun-Wiese said. Althaus said the dreams showed Williams' mental state. "That is a problem in her head, how does that show premeditation?" Althaus said. "How does that set up (her husband) for the crime? It goes against that."

Althaus also said the manner of Neal's murder contradicts someone who is planning an elaborate murder. "Who would plan to kill her husband with a sword?" he asked.

The prosecution tried to make it clear Williams killed her children first before returning to kill her husband later that night. The accusation Williams killed the children when they were put to bed was not reasonable, Althaus said.

"It doesn't make sense that Manling Williams would kill her kids with Neal in the house while he was on the phone with his sister," he said.

In the end,Okun-Wiese said the time of death was meaningless because the verdict remains the same either way.

"Quite frankly, it doesn't matter," she said. "She killed them."

The manner in which she killed the children also displayed the deliberate nature of the murder, Okun-Wiese said.

"It is a minimum of five minutes she had to hold that pillow over the nose and mouth of her 3-year-old son, Ian," she said. "Time that five minutes. It feels like eternity."

Woman convicted of killing husband, children
November 4, 2010
A 31-year-old Pomona woman was convicted Thursday in the murder of her husband and two young children.

A jury found Manling Tsang Williams guilty on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her husband and her two young sons in August 2007 at the family’s Rowland Heights home.

Detectives said Neal Williams, 27, was stabbed more than 90 times. Devon Williams, 7, and Ian Williams, 3, were suffocated with a pillow, authorities said.

Attorneys debate life, death in the final arguments of the Manling Williams trial
Posted: 11/22/2010 07:06:19 PM PST


POMONA - The death penalty is reserved for not only the worst crimes, but for the worst people - and Manling Williams isn't the latter, said defense attorneys Monday.

Defense attorneys Haydeh Takasugi and Tom Althaus made their closing statements in the penalty phase of Williams' trial.

Williams faces the death penalty after she was convicted on Nov. 4 of slashing to death her husband, Neal, and smothering her two sons, Devon, 7, and Ian, 3, with a pillow in their Rowland Heights home on Aug. 7, 2007.

Throughout the penalty phase, the defense tried to reveal the story of Manling Williams, one they said was filled with "pain, heartache, and diminished dreams."

Through that story, Takasugi said she hoped

File photo of Man-ling Williams, then 27, of Rowland Heights as she listens to Judge Abraham Khan during her arraignment Aug. 10, 2007, on three counts of homicide in connection with the deaths of her husband and two children. (SGVN/Staff photo by Leo Jarzomb)the jury would grant her life.
"This is the hardest thing I have ever done, wondering if I called the right witnesses, that I told you who (Williams) is, that I made the right arguments," she said. "With my heart racing, hand trembling, and voice breaking, I ask you to allow this sister, this daughter, this mother to retreat back to her cell ... to do so each and every day until she awakes no more ... to do so at the hands of God and not the hands of man."

Deputy District Attorney Stacy Okun-Wiese spoke with conviction to begin statements Monday.

"Make no mistake about it, granting life without parole is granting leniency," she said.

Okun-Wiese asked jurors to consider the impact of the murders in determining a penalty.

The family of Neal Williams has been damaged beyond repair, she said.

"The defendant not only took the lives of Neal, Devon and Ian with these murders. She took a piece of Jan (Neal's mother) with her, a piece of Mala (Neal's sister) with her. She ruined more lives than I can count."

In the end, all those families have left are memories, Okun-Wiese said, as she showed recent photos of Neal and his children.

"There will be no more additional photographs in these frames," she said. "Never again. In 15 years, 20 years, Jan Williams will have these photographs and nothing more."

Althaus said a life sentence was not "lenient."

"Think about the hopelessness of it," he said. "A 30-year-old woman sitting there for 40 or 50 years."

Takasugi said punishments are nuanced and can't be determined based solely on the crime, but a person's life and character outside the crime are factors as well.

Williams was a good, charitable person before the murders with no history of violence or criminal behavior, defense attorneys said.

"A life is measured by its valleys and its hills," Takasugi said. "The prosecution is asking you to measure it by its valleys, and they are deep. But there are hills and some of them are magnificent."

Okun-Wiese criticized the defense's case that focused on Williams' tough and potentially abusive upbringing.

"When did it become OK in our society to to commit three heinous crimes, kill your children and your husband and to blame it on your mom?" Okun-Wiese said. "This case screams for the maximum punishment."

Defense attorney Tom Althaus, who made the final statements Monday, said the defense wasn't trying to justify the murders.

"We are not trying to make any excuses," he said. "We are not trying to blame anybody else. We are not blaming her mom. Manling Williams is responsible for the crime and she will suffer the consequences."

Althaus discussed one of the factors of mitigation he felt the jury should consider, which was mercy for Williams.

If jury members felt sympathy for her, for her life, family and who she is, they could consider that even in the face of her crimes, he said.

"Pity is not a trade off," Althaus said, often pausing between thoughts and briefly describing the death penalty chamber in San Quentin. "It is something you give for free, something that comes from your heart, that this woman has something worth saving. That's your choice, ultimately. To give her life or decide for her to go to that death chamber and have her family look in those windows and see her die."

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_16686926

Prosecutors begin second attempt to secure death penalty for Rowland Heights woman
07/07/2011
POMONA - Many of the faces in the courtroom Thursday for the penalty phase of Manling Tsang Williams' trial were familiar.
Her parents, sister and brother were in attendance, preparing once again to ask for Williams' life to be spared - just as they did seven months ago during prosecutors' first attempt to get the death penalty for Williams.

And Jan and Mala Williams were there too. The mother and sister, respectively, of Neal Williams - Manling's former husband - were in court to share stories of how they were impacted by the murder of Neal, and their two children, Devon, 7, and Ian, 3.

There was one big difference in the courtroom, though - the 12 new jurors and eight alternate jurors who are tasked with deciding if Williams will live out her days in prison or face the death penalty.

Williams, 31, was convicted Nov. 4 of slashing to death Neal with a samurai sword, and smothering their two sons with a pillow in their Rowland Heights home on Aug. 7, 2007.

Following the conviction, a jury of six men and six women deadlocked: eight favored giving Williams the death penalty while four favored life in prison.

On Thursday at the Pomona Courthouse, Deputy District Attorney Pak Kouch introduced the new jury - split evenly between men and women - to the Williams family.

"They died at the hands of this woman," Kouch said, pointing to Manling Williams. "Because of this woman, Neal, Devon and Ian are no longer here."



Read more: Prosecutors begin second attempt to secure death penalty for Rowland Heights woman - Whittier Daily News http://www.whittierdailynews.com/ci_18437311?IADID=Search-www.whittierdailynews.com-www.whittierdailynews.com#ixzz1Rzb1KPeO

For the second time, Manling Williams awaits jury decision whether she lives or dies
Posted: 08/02/2011
POMONA - Who deserves mercy?
That was the central theme during closing arguments of the second death penalty phase of Manling Tsang Williams' trial on Tuesday at the Pomona Superior Courthouse.

Defense attorneys for Williams argued that their client still has value to her family, friends and society despite being convicted of murdering her family.

And, they said, Williams' troubled and sad life deserves sympathy in the form of life without parole.

"Mercy is one of the noblest qualities human beings have," Defense Attorney Tom Althaus said. "Mercy is a gift."

For the prosecution, mercy isn't given to those who brutally murder their children and husband.

Instead, they asked the jury to judge

Manling Williams Williams by her most cruel actions.
"Character is what you are in the dark," Deputy District Attorney Pak Kouch said. "And in the dark we see the defendant's character."

Williams, 31, was convicted Nov. 4 of slashing to death her husband, Neal, and smothering her two sons, Devon, 7, and Ian, 3, with a pillow in their Rowland Heights home on Aug. 7, 2007.

Neal Williams was originally from Whittier.

The jury that convicted Manling Williams later deadlocked 8-4 in favor of the death penalty. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office then elected to retry the death penalty portion of the trial with a new jury.

The second death penalty trial came to a close on Tuesday as the prosecution and defense made closing statements. The jury then went into deliberation in the late afternoon.
As was the case in the previous death penalty trial, much of the testimony brought forth by the defense centered on Manling Williams' troubled childhood. She was often chastised by her parents for her failures at school and rebellious behavior. The defense also had testimony from Williams' mother, Alice Tsang, who admitted to hitting her child, as well as Williams' siblings, who discussed harsh treatment their parents gave Manling, including hitting her in the shins with a stick as punishment.

Unlike the last trial, the prosecution devoted more time to addressing Manling's childhood and her mother's behavior.

Previously, the prosecution made light of the defense's case, with Deputy District Attorney Stacey Okun-Wiese asking "When did it become OK in our society to commit three heinous crimes, kill your children and your husband and to blame it on your mom?"

In Tuesday's closing arguments, Okun-Wiese defended Tsang's parenting, liking it to the style described in the book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua.

Okun-Wiese also said testimony contradicted the actions of Williams, who had her parents baby-sit her children on a daily basis.

"If she is that bad a person and that bad a mother, why would you leave your children with her every day for three years?" Okun-Wiese asked. "That argument fails."

But Defense Attorney Haydeh Takasugi didn't back away from the defense.

Instead, she reminded the jury of a yearlong Department of Children and Family Services investigation when Williams was a child that found abuse in the home.

Takasugi said those events had an impact on Williams.

"We know childhood matters, we know it intuitively," she said.

And she said Tsang's criticism of Williams wasn't just nagging - as the prosecution characterized it - and repeated the derogatory terms Tsang used to refer to Williams, which often focused on her intelligence or claims of promiscuity.
Takasugi also responded to a previous ultimatum given to the jury by Kouch, who asked the jury to decide between mercy or justice.

"Justice and mercy are not separate," Takasugi said. "They are one in the same."

Okun-Wiese, in her remarks, said that though Williams' life had bumps, it played out much like any other youth. She was in band and drama, she had a strong core of friends, she dated, she rebelled, Okun-Wiese said.

And in the end, she murdered those closest to her, she said.

"This is the person they want you to feel sorry for?" Okun-Wiese said. "The punishment should fit the crime."

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/crime/ci_18604854

Jury orders death penalty for woman convicted of killing family
August 9, 2011

A Los Angeles County jury handed down a death penalty verdict Tuesday for a woman convicted of killing her husband and two young boys in their Rowland Heights home in 2007.

Manling Tsang Williams, 31, was convicted of killing her 27-year-old husband and two sons, who were 3 and 7.

Husband Neal Williams, was slain with a sword, and children Devon Williams and Ian Williams were smothered with a pillow while they lay in their bunk beds, prosecutors said.

Manling Williams called authorities to report that she had found the bodies after she returned home from shopping.

The jury deliberated for five days before voting for the death penalty, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said.

Williams is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 23.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/death-penalty-mother-rowland-heights.html

Judge: Manling Williams is 'selfish,' must 'suffer the penalty of death'

Posted: 01/19/2012 11:39:27 AM PST

Manling Williams turns to her Defense attorney, Haydeh Takasugi, as her
sentence is read in Pomona Superior Court on January 19, 2012 where she
received the death penalty after being convicted of murdering her
husband and two children. Williams was convicted of murdering her
husband and two son in their Rowland Heights home in 2007. (Keith
Durflinger/Staff Photographer)



POMONA - A judge sentenced Manling Tsang Williams to death Thursday
for smothering her two young children with a pillow and slashing her
husband to death with a sword in the family's Rowland Heights home in
2007.


The 32-year-old woman sobbed and shook as Pomona Superior
Court Judge Robert Martinez handed down the sentence for the Aug. 7,
2007 murders of her husband Neal Williams, 27, and their sons Devon, 7,
and Ian, 3, at the family's condominium on the 18200 block of Camino
Bello.

A jury convicted her of three counts of first-degree murder in
2010, along with the special allegations of using weapons and lying in
wait. After one jury was hung regarding whether to sentence Manling
Williams to death or life imprisonment, a second penalty phase jury
recommended last year that she be put to death.

Judge Martinez followed that recommendation.

"It is the order of this court that you should suffer the penalty of death," he told Manling Williams.

Manling Williams, who was dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit
and glasses and had her hands shackled at the waist during the
proceeding, kept her eyes fixed on the table in front of her throughout.

Jan Williams, mother of Neal Williams and grandmother to Devon
and Ian Williams, said she was glad to see the trial, now in its fourth
year, draw to a close at last.

"I'm relieved that this chapter is over," she said. "I couldn't take another trial."

She added, "This has had a terrible impact, not just on me and my family, on the Tsang family, but everyone involved."

The judge reflected on the crime at the sentencing hearing.

"The evidence is compelling that the defendant, for selfish reasons, murdered her own two children," Martinez said.

Her motivation, Martinez said, was a "narcissistic, selfish
and adolescent," desire to start a new life with another man, free from
the hindrances of family life.

In the months before the murders, Manling Williams had
reconnected through the internet with an old friend and begun a
relationship with him.

The judge pointed out that Manling Williams had numerous
family members who would have taken in the children, should she have
decided to abandon them.

After smothering Devon and Ian in their bunk bed, "The
defendant savagely, brutally and viciously attacked her husband with a
katana sword," Martinez said.

Neal Williams was stabbed and slashed more than a 97 times in the attack, investigators said.

"In the final moments of life, Neal begged the defendant for help," the judge said.

The case was prosecuted by Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorneys Stacy Okun-Wiese and Pak Kouch.

Defense attorneys Tom Althaus and Haydeh Takasugi argued for their clients life to be spared.

Althaus told the court that the killings were not a calculated executions, but a "sudden mistake."

"There's no basis for the prosecution's contention that these
murders were planned," Althaus said, adding that Manling Williams was in
a state of "extreme mental and emotional disturbance" when she killed
her husband and sons.

Mitigating factors also included a difficult upbringing and no previous history of violence, he said.

Althaus acknowledged that his client had had an extra-marital
affair, but disputed the prosecution's assertion that the affair formed a
motive for the crime.

"There's no good explanation why it happened," Althaus said.

Prior to the killings, Manling Williams was "a kind, generous, troubled woman who loved her husband and children," he said.

Manling Williams sister, Shun Ling Tsang, also urged the judge
to spare her sister's life and sentence her instead to life in prison
without the possibility of parole.

"Both families involved in this case have asked the prosecution not to pursue a second penalty phase," Tsang said.

Following the announcement that the first jury had hung in the
penalty phase of the trial, both Williams and Tsang family members said
they would rather see the prosecution accept a defense plea deal for a
life sentence without the possibility of parole that included waiving
rights to future appeals.

The prosecution elected to re-try the penalty phase, resulting
in a jury recommendation of the death penalty in August of last year.

The ongoing court proceedings entailed in a death penalty case
are only serving to cause more pain for family members already
devastated by tragedy, Tsang said, adding that she believed the
prosecution's pursuit of the death penalty was "ego-driven" and
"politically motivated."

"Today will not bring about closure or healing," Tsang said.

Jan Williams said she had mixed feelings about the sentence.

"I have some reservations, because it can be hard on the families. It can take decades to resolve," she said.

She said she hoped the appeals process, which begins
automatically when a convict is sentenced to death in California, will
not require her to continue attending court hearings regularly.

The judge said he himself had concerns over the way the death penalty is administered in California.

"This penalty is precariously close to becoming a hypothetical," Martinez said.

The judge expressed sympathy to both the Williams and Tsang
families and spoke of his own concerns of the inefficient way in which
the death penalty is currently carried out in California, but ruled that
that the death penalty was appropriate, considering the law and the
facts of the case.

Out of more than 700 California death row inmates, less than
two dozen of them are women, and none them have been among the 13
prisoners executed since the death penalty was restored in 1976.

"Ms. Williams, I will probably never see you again," the judge
added. "I will be long gone when this case and judgement is finalized."

Each of the three killings, Martinez said, were "deliberate, premeditated and committed by lying in wait."

Martinez said that the evidence showed that Manling Williams
had planned the killings two months in advance, and immediately began
trying to conceal her guilt afterward.

She wore latex gloves as she attacked her husband, he said.

Testimony indicated it takes five to 10 minutes for a person
to die by suffocation, meaning that Manling Williams had at least five
minutes to contemplate her actions while killing one of her children
before killing her other son in the same manner, Martinez said.

"She clearly had time to reflect on what she was doing," he said.

Following the killing, the judge said, Manling Williams typed
up a note indicating that Neal Williams had killed the children and
himself, disposed of bloody clothing and returned home before screaming
to neighbors that someone had killed her family.

While being interviewed by detectives after the discovery of
the bodies, "For hours, she feigned grief, sadness and bewilderment,"
Martinez said.

It was only after being confronted by investigators with a
bloody cigarette box that was found in her car that Manling Williams
broke down and admitted the murders, Martinez said.

"It is not for me to forgive, because the ones in the position
to forgive are not with us," Martinez told Manling Williams. "I hope
your families find peace."

After years of hearings in which the judge remained
intentionally stoic, "It was rather chilling to have the judge pronounce
his opinion so frankly," Jan Williams said.

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_19775482

A frank judge. He could see right through her.

Guess she won't do that again.

Justice served for those two children and their father.