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Witness Charged in Killing Spree By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 2:06 a.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) -- When Howard Hawk Willis was arrested in a cocaine-smuggling case in New York, federal authorities released him on bail and drafted him as a cooperating witness. No one envisioned the horror to come. After the drug case ended in July, Willis -- while still under government supervision -- allegedly went on a killing spree that left a trail of body parts across Tennessee and Georgia. The murder defendant was ordered held without bail Friday during a brief hearing in the same Brooklyn courthouse where he cut a plea deal with prosecutors. Willis became a government witness despite questions about his past, including the mysterious disappearance of his wife in 1987. Federal prosecutors declined to discuss Willis, a 51-year-old truck driver from Georgia. A call to his attorney was not immediately returned. Willis was free on $200,000 bond and awaiting sentencing in the drug case when he allegedly killed Georgia newlyweds Adam Ray Chrismer, 17, and Samantha Foster Leming, 16, over what one police official described as a cocaine-for-sex scheme. The bodies of the couple were found in a storage unit. In a taped jail conversation, Willis allegedly admitted he fatally shot Chrismer, then cut off his head and hands and threw them into a lake in Tennessee. Investigators have also identified Willis as a suspect in the slaying of his 73-year-old stepfather, Samuel Thomas, whose headless body turned up in the Georgia wilderness, and are investigating the disappearance of his first wife, Deborah Willis. Court records in Brooklyn show Willis was charged in 2000 with using his tractor-trailer to haul 700 kilograms of cocaine from Texas to New York. He surrendered and began volunteering information about the alleged supplier, Kenneth Hart Adams. U.S. Magistrate Marilyn Go released Willis on a $200,000 bond secured with property from his relatives. He was allowed to return to Georgia, where he was ordered to report regularly to the U.S. Pretrial Services Agency. The release was not unusual: Defendants facing similar drug charges often are freed if they cooperate with investigators, put up property to secure a bond, have no serious criminal history and strong community ties. Willis later pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and agreed to testify against Adams in hopes of avoiding a possible life sentence. Adams also pleaded guilty on his first day of trial, so Willis never took the stand. Records reveal that before the trial, an attorney for Adams, Donald DuBoulay, argued that the jury should hear about the disappearance of Willis' wife. ``If foul play was reasonably suspected in his wife's disappearance, this matter is a legitimate inquiry into the credibility of the witness,'' DuBoulay said. But prosecutors countered that the allegation was irrelevant, apparently after Willis convinced them he was innocent. Willis was arrested Oct. 11 when federal agents learned he was using credit cards belonging to his missing stepfather. He was expected to be sentenced in Brooklyn on the drug charge Dec. 13 before being sent back to Tennessee, where he faces two counts of first-degree murder. Source/Publisher: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Body-Parts.html
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