OHIO LAST MEAL
WILLIE J. "FLIP" WILLIAMS. JR.
October 25, 2005

...Labor Day Massacre...

Last Meal: Williams opted not to request the customary special dinner that condemned inmates are allowed to choose before execution. Williams had asked only for a cup of coffee.

The skinny: Williams, a cocaine dealer, was executed for killing four men in a bid to seize control of the drug trade in a Youngstown housing project.

In a city once called the nation's crime capital, Williams' wanted to be like the dons of the Youngstown underworld who had battled for control of rackets as part of a feud between the Cleveland and Pittsburgh mobs. According to police and prosecutors, he may have killed up to 10 other people but never was charged.

More skinny: Williams had returned to his hometown of Youngstown in 1991 after serving a prison stint in California for dealing cocaine and sought to reclaim control of drug sales in a public housing project.

In what became known as the "Labor Day Massacre," Williams recruited three juvenile accomplices: his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Jessica M. Cherry; her brother, Dominic M. Cherry; and Dominic Cherry's seventeen-year-old "cousin", Broderick Boone to set up the three men who had taken over the drug trade.

Williams equipped the juveniles with walkie-talkies, guns, and diagrams of the home of one of his rivals. The juveniles entered the home and subdued one victim, then Williams entered. Two others were lured to the location. They were bound, along with a friend who came to visit, a recently discharged Air Force Sgt. Going from room to room, Williams shot each of the four victims in the head with one of the victim's gun.

The group left the house but Williams went back in “to make sure they were all dead”. Later, back at his apartment, Williams embraced his juvenile accomplices and rewarded them with drugs. He warned them not to tell anyone what they had done or he would kill them.

Shortly after his arrest as a suspect in the murders, Williams and a group of other inmates escaped from a county jail. A few months later, he broke into a juvenile jail where his three accomplices in the murders were being held, apparently intending to kill them because they had cooperated with police. Williams took a guard and a receptionist hostage but was unable to get in and eventually surrendered peacefully.

Last words and such: Before Williams died, he winked and blew a kiss to his adult daughter, Jameka, and thanked her and his brother and uncle for being witnesses. "I'm not going to waste no time talking about my lifestyle, my case, my punishment. Y'all stick together. Don't worry about me. I'm OK."

Factoids: Williams was the...

44th murderer executed in U.S. in 2005
988th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
3rd murderer executed in Ohio in 2005
18th murderer executed in Ohio since 1976

Two other inmates are slated for execution next month.