Suspect charged with first-degree murder in Capitol Hill stabbing

The man accused of killing a woman outside her Capitol Hill condominium on New Year's Eve in an apparent random attack has been charged with one count of first-degree murder.

The charge against James Anthony Williams, 48 was announced this morning during a news conference at the King County Prosecutor's Office. The charge carries a possible sentence of 25 to 33 years in prison.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg also announced that he and the state Department of Corrections will create ad hoc committee to examine Williams' supervision following his release from prison. The group will include representatives from corrections, the prosecutor's office, law enforcement and mental-health workers.

"It is our worst fear — a random, predatory and violent killing," said Satterberg. "It compels us to sit down once again and look at the system we built."

According to prosecutors, Williams fatally stabbed 31-year-old Shannon Harps outside her Capitol Hill condominium on New Year's Eve. Police say DNA found on evidence at the scene links Williams to the crime.

In the past year alone, Williams was evaluated by mental-health professionals at least three times because of erratic behavior, from threatening to kill a community-corrections officer and a case manager to carrying a large knife in his sweat-shirt pocket.

The last time, in December, King County mental-health evaluators concluded he didn't fit the criteria for commitment, which is being an imminent risk to himself or others, according to one law-enforcement source familiar with his case.

Williams' history, which includes refusal to take medication for his paranoid schizophrenia, has led to questions about the way he has been handled by the mental-health and legal systems and why he was free at the time of Harps' slaying.

Concerns late last year

Williams has a history of mental illness and psychiatric hospitalization dating to his teenage years in Arkansas. He once told a psychiatric social worker that God told him to "shoot bad people" and that he carried a knife to protect himself from both God and the devil.

In September, the landlord of his Capitol Hill apartment told police he had threatened her.

Police said they considered Williams "a threat to the safety of officers and those around him," so they searched him and found an 8-inch butcher knife in his sweat-shirt pocket.

He was evaluated by officials from Western State Hospital and found competent to stand trial on a harassment charge. After pleading guilty, he was given a 120-day sentence but was immediately released because he'd already served the time.

But the Seattle Municipal Court judge on the case remained alarmed about Williams and in December requested that commitment to a mental hospital be considered.

King County mental-health evaluators determined Williams didn't meet the threshold, according to the law-enforcement source.

Amnon Schoenfeld, head of King County's mental-health division, declined Monday to discuss Williams' case.

Officially flagged as dangerous

But even before his arrest in September, he was considered a high risk by police, state Department of Corrections (DOC) officers and community mental-health staff.

In March 2006, he was evaluated for possible commitment to Western State just days before his release from prison in Monroe, where he had been serving time for a 1995 assault conviction.

The worries about Williams continued after his release.

The DOC said that in the past six months alone, its staff has logged 50 contacts with Williams, his mental-health providers and others who had close contact with him.

He had been flagged as one of 70 Dangerous Mentally Ill Offenders (DMIO) in King County.

Under that program, launched 10 years ago after a mentally ill man fatally stabbed a Seattle Fire Department captain on the street, people who leave prison with severe mental illness receive extra scrutiny.

"He was definitely a concern," said Chad Lewis, a DOC spokesman. "Given his history and the fact he was a DMIO, we put a high level of supervision on him."

Charged in March 2007

Last March, his DOC probation officer was concerned about Williams' "history of delusions and very violent thoughts." He told Seattle police that Williams was deteriorating after he'd stopped taking his medications.

Williams told a police officer in March he planned to "shoot all his caseworkers" at Sound Mental Health. He also said he intended to buy a .22-caliber rifle and "lay in wait at the Department of Corrections parking lot and shoot" his corrections officer as he came to work, according to a police report.

That resulted in Williams being charged with harassment in Seattle Municipal Court, but those charges were dismissed in May because Western State Hospital officials found him incompetent to stand trial.

The judge then asked for Williams to be evaluated for civil commitment at the state psychiatric hospital, according to court records.

It is unclear what happened as a result of that request.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com. Staff reporter Maureen O'Hagan contributed to this report.