Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — A 70-year-old inmate at the Utah State Prison who says he has only months to live is asking the state to grant him parole from his life sentence.
But family members of Jill Stoddard Williamson, 19, say Timothy Howard Edwards deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison for the brutal killing of their loved one.
"You deserve no compassion. You, alone, sentenced Jill to a horrific death. She begged for her life," her mother, Jane Stoddard, told the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole on Tuesday.
"I am begging for justice for Jill," added Lance Williamson, who had been married to Jill for two months before she was murdered.
On Aug. 16, 1991, Williamson was working alone at the Tri-Mart convenience store in St. George when Edwards, a delivery man for Work Clothes Inc., stopped at the store and asked Williamson to follow him to his truck. He then sexually assaulted and brutally bludgeoned Williamson to death with a hammer. Her nude body was found dumped at a storage unit complex a few blocks away.
Edwards originally pleaded guilty to the killing, claiming to be mentally ill. But at sentencing, Utah's 5th District Judge James L. Shumate ruled he did not believe Edwards, whom he said had shown no remorse for his crime, was mentally ill and sentenced him on his murder conviction with 5 years to up to life in the Utah State Prison.
During his first parole hearing in 1995, the board decided Edwards should remain in prison for the rest of his "natural life."
That decision remained unchanged following several reviews over the years.
More recently, Edwards asked for a "compassionate release" hearing due to health issues. His request for release was denied last year but another hearing was scheduled for Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Edwards explained to a member of the Board of Pardons he has "terminal progressive blood cancer" and in September of 2020 he was given 48 months to live and believes he has only until October. He asked the board if he could spend his remaining time with his children and grandchildren while possibly working at a call center.
"I don't see much of a future, just earning money while I'm alive," he said. "There are no really long-range goals with the prognosis I've been given."
But Williamson's family and friends say they still struggle even today over what happened 33 years ago.
"This girl was loved by all. Timothy Edwards took this away," her mother told the board, adding she was killed "for no other reason except for his cruel, sick agenda … (He) treated her like a piece of trash and threw her along a dark side road."
Lance Williamson, who has since remarried, said Jill was "my high school sweetheart and the love of my life." He talked about the scrapbook she started after they were married two months earlier.
"Most of these pages are empty now," he told the board. "We were young and just beginning our lives together. … We never got a chance to do the big things.
"Everyone will be a little bit safer if Timothy stays behind bars," he continued, while also adding that the Edwards' compassion hearing "made me sick" and that Edwards rarely referred to Jill by name during prior hearings.
"Let me remind you that her name is Jill and she is not an object," he said.
When asked if he wanted to respond to the statements given by Jill's family, Edwards only wanted to dispute the notion by Lance Williamson, who used to be in law enforcement, that Williamson, at one time, saw boxes of evidence being carried from the same building where Edwards was arrested.
"There was no evidence of any kind," Edwards said.
Later in the hearing, board member Blake Hills continued to press Edwards on whether he took responsibility for his crime.
"I took the life of an innocent person," Edwards said. "Not a day goes by that I do not feel heartache or anguish for taking Jill's life."
Edwards read a two-page statement he had prepared, during which he claimed therapy he has received while incarcerated has led him to believe abuse by his stepmother, a "brain-chemistry problem" and his habit of watching pornographic and violent videos was "detrimental to my psyche" and contributed to him committing the crime.
Hills, however, brought up the most recent evaluation conducted on Edwards in preparation for the hearing in which a doctor concluded rather than Edwards being "triggered" into attacking Jill Williamson because of past traumatic events, it was more plausible he intended to sexually assault her that night and ended up killing her when things didn't go the way he wanted.
"I did have a sexual focus, yes," Edwards admitted to the board. "I don't know why I struck her. It was not something I intended to do. I did not mean to kill her, I did not want that … I did those things, yes, But I was not in my right frame of mind when I did them."
The full five-member board will now decide whether to grant parole based on a majority vote. Hills said a decision would probably take several weeks.
Correction: Jane Stoddard, Jill Stoddard Williamson's mother, spoke at Tuesday's parole hearing. An earlier version incorrectly identified her as Jill's sister.
