[Female narrator] On All Hallow's Eve,
a single mother becomes the target
of a terrifying attack.
[gunshot]
There's a woman on the ground
and somebody in a full Halloween costume,
holding a shotgun, aiming it down at her.
This isn't a Halloween prank. This is a real murder.
[Narrator] And two of the only witnesses
are the victim's twin daughters.
They both had blood all over their costume and in their hair,
and on their face.
It put me in a place of resolve. I'm gonna make sure
that we find out who did this.
[Narrator] The investigation uncovers evidence
of a dangerous love triangle.
There is a history of violent behaviors
that's often a trigger for an escalation.
I knew it wasn't her that did the killing,
but I knew she's involved somehow.
We walked away going,
"She's not telling us the truth."
[Narrator] But the monster demands control.
As sick and twisted as it is, I think that was
his ultimate vengeance.
They face a real-life bogeyman.
[theme music]
[music]
[Narrator] October 31, 2015.
It's a typical hectic Halloween in the town of Brandon, Florida,
a suburb just east of Tampa.
There's a lot of families, so Halloween is a time that
would be very busy in the Brandon area.
You usually see groups of parents with their kids
walking the neighborhood, going door-to-door, trick-or-treating.
[Narrator] After handing out candy at her apartment complex
all evening, a young woman is relaxing on her couch
with a horror movie marathon.
But around 11:00 PM, she gets a different kind of scare.
[door banging open]
She said that she'd heard a loud bang or a boom.
And she said her front door flew open.
And she jumps up startled. She gets over to look.
There's a woman on the ground who she recognizes as
her neighbor, Tiffany James,
and somebody in a full Halloween costume,
holding a shotgun, aiming it down at her.
[Gloria] She realizes, this is real.
This isn't a Halloween prank.
[Narrator] Terrified, she immediately shuts the door.
Seconds later, she hears three gunshots.
[gunshots]
[Gloria] She's horrified. She can't believe this is
happening right at her front door.
[Narrator] But the terror isn't over yet.
[knocking on door]
She hears a knock at the door.
Well, she's reluctant to open it, but when she does,
she sees a terrified little girl covered in blood.
[Narrator] The woman recognizes the little girl
as Tiffany's daughter, who lives a couple buildings down.
They bring her in, and a short time after that,
a second knock, and it's the little girl's twin sister.
[Narrator] The neighbor keeps the seven-year-old girls safe
while she calls 911.
By that time, she isn't the only one.
The callers are clearly distressed and terrified,
saying that there has been a shooting.
[sirens wailing]
When the deputies arrived, there was an individual there,
a Black female who had significant trauma
and what appeared to be gunshot injuries.
[Narrator] Paramedics immediately rush
35-year-old Tiffany to Tampa General Hospital.
[Moises] You can only imagine what the horror would be like
just to have that happen on any night.
The idea that it would have happened on Halloween night
and somebody's in a full Halloween costume
was definitely unusual as well.
[Gloria] They face a real-life bogeyman,
and they don't know what is going on.
Who could have shot and killed this mother?
And done it in front of her two children on Halloween night?
[Narrator] Tiffany James was born on August 18, 1980.
From the beginning, her life was defined by adversity.
Tiffany was my go-to, my sister. She's my dad's oldest child.
Um, and that was from a previous relationship.
She grew up in Tampa. My dad wasn't physically there
because he was, you know, in Gainesville with us.
[Narrator] In her teens, Tiffany went to live
with family members.
She ended up living with her aunt.
I think there were other family members involved
that was kinda helping her, you know, kinda raise her.
[Narrator] It wasn't long before Tiffany started her own family.
The year she graduated high school,
she welcomed her first son.
A few years later, she and her boyfriend
welcomed another baby boy, but soon after,
she found herself a single mother.
[Dorell] They just grew up and grew apart.
Whatever issues they may have had,
if they even had any issues at all, they were set aside,
and they were there for the boys.
I could definitely see how having your parents not so
present in your upbringing, I felt like it made Tiffany,
like, embed herself there and to let the kids know
that she was there.
She was working in some medical office.
She had her family and she was-- she was gonna take care of 'em.
[Narrator] As she worked to establish a life
with her two young boys,
Tiffany still dreamed of having a complete family.
Around 2008, she met Darryl Williams.
14 years her senior, Darryl also had older children
from previous relationships.
[Gloria] She fell in love with Darryl.
Right after, they ended up having children together.
They had two twin girls.
A few years after the girls were born,
they decided, you know what, let's get married.
They connected in a deeper level,
and so things were moving along in their relationship.
[Narrator] By the late 2000s,
Tiffany's family had grown even larger.
After more than two decades, she finally met her
half-siblings for the first time.
[Dorell] It wasn't until right as I was turning a teenager,
you know, my dad was like, you know, you know,
y'all got a sister, you know, type of thing.
I remember her coming up for something.
I don't know if it was one of my nephews' birthday
or something like that. Tiffany was a light.
She was a light. She had this big ol' beautiful smile.
She had all four of her kids at that point. My younger sisters,
they didn't grow up in the house with an older sister.
I think they clicked the quickest.
[Narrator] While Tiffany's newfound connection with her
family thrived, her relationship with Darryl wasn't as strong.
I remember she called me, and that's when I knew it wasn't
what it was cracked up to be or what it appeared to be.
She just said that, ever since they got engaged,
I guess things started...
I don't know, for lack of a better term, deteriorating.
[Narrator] After five years, they'd split up.
And Tiffany was once again a single mother to her boys
and seven-year-old twins.
I felt like she embraced it all. Hell or high water,
she was gonna be--she was gonna provide for her kids.
Tiffany was--she was ambitious. She was in school for, I think,
aesthetician or cosmetology. She had that entrepreneur spirit
where she wanted to own her own salon.
Tiffany found her strength, you know, kicking the dirt
off her boots and moving forward.
[Narrator] In the summer of 2015,
Tiffany unexpectedly bumped into an old friend
she'd met at a party years before.
[Gloria] He's a single dad with kids of his own.
And they strike up a friendship,
but things continue to grow between the two.
[Michael] He and Tiffany had never been romantic
until after she ended it with Darryl.
And then just in the last few months,
their friendship had developed into a relationship.
He thought she was a wonderful mom.
[Dorell] I felt like Tiffany was, um, like, she was relieved.
She was trying, you know, she was trying to find
a path forward.
They were friends for a while before they even
took it that route, so, um, yeah.
I just felt like she was, she wasn't looking back.
Her friend was the path forward for her.
[Narrator] Now her bright future has been cut short.
Doctors are trying to save Tiffany's life
after she was shot by a masked gunman
outside of a neighbor's apartment on Halloween.
[Michael] Her injuries were significant.
She had significant head trauma.
We knew that with the type of injury that Miss James had,
that it was not just a handgun that had caused that injury.
She had to have been shot with a devastating weapon.
[Narrator] Tragically, her wounds are too severe.
They pronounced Tiffany James deceased at the hospital.
[Moises] To my recollection, it's the only Halloween murder
I've ever had,
and I was in homicide for almost 14 years.
[Narrator] Homicide detectives are immediately
called to the scene.
I personally had been out that night with my wife
and my children. We had gone trick-or-treating,
like we always do, and when we were getting settled
was when I got the phone call. While I was on the way there
is when I learned that there were actually kids involved.
[Narrator] Inside the neighbor's apartment,
they find Tiffany's twin girls sheltering with the neighbor.
[Moises] They both had blood all over their costume
and in their hair, and on their face.
One of them, I can't remember which one, couldn't even talk.
She would try, and there was no voice coming out.
It's heartbreaking.
[Michael] It put me in a place of resolve.
I'm gonna make sure that we find out who did this.
[Narrator] But other than shotgun shells outside,
investigators find little evidence to work with.
[Michael] The deputies immediately began to think that
this is probably not a robbery.
Nothing was gone through the purse.
This is not somebody who was, just showed up and wanted to
take money from Miss James. It was something personal.
[Narrator] Coming up. The list of suspects
includes Tiffany's most trusted loved ones.
He's got a firearm with him inside the garage.
[Narrator] But one name rises to the top.
She said, "If something's happened to Tiffany,
then my father is your prime suspect."
[Narrator] Just before midnight on Halloween,
Tampa detectives are investigating the murder
of 35-year-old Tiffany James.
All they knew is they had someone dressed as Jason
with a mask on who shot and killed a woman
in front of her children on Halloween night.
When you have a scene that doesn't have a lot
of physical evidence, you begin to have to
rely on what people tell you.
[Narrator] While officers track down Tiffany's family,
one of the first people detectives talk to
is Tiffany's neighbor, who witnessed the shooting.
You realize the magnitude and the difficulties
that you're about to deal with
because they're in a complete costume from head to toe.
Race, you know, hair, anything like that is really
out the window because they're completely covered up.
Maybe the individual picked Halloween
because he thought he could get away with it.
Somebody had to have planned this, to conceal themself,
so that they could carry out this attack.
He wouldn't stand out walking around in a Halloween mask.
[Narrator] While detectives interview the neighbor,
additional deputies are canvassing the area
for more information.
There was a couple neighbors that did see an individual
who was dressed in all black running from the area.
They both described the same person.
Stature about 5'7" to 6'0", 200, 220 pounds.
They said definitely a male, but they could not see race.
They could not see anything, other than his full outfit
and his body type.
[Michael] As terrible as this may sound, the community itself
was glad it had kind of happened later in the evening
because just two hours before that, the complex had been
filled with kids walking around, going door-to-door,
collecting candy and trick-or-treating.
[Narrator] Neighbors say they also noticed a strange car
outside the building around the time of the shooting.
It was a silver sedan. They said that the car
had left very quickly after the first gunshot.
They didn't know if that was somebody that may be related
or involved in this, but what we could tell
in talking to those neighbors about when the car left
and in communicating with the other neighbors
who saw someone running, that the car had definitely left
after the individual was seen running away.
[Narrator] Unfortunately, no one saw a license plate
for the silver car. And there are no security cameras
at the apartment complex.
We got back together as detectives and we kinda decided,
what do we need to do next? In a case like this,
it's what can we do for these two girls now?
Part of the job of law enforcement is
to wear many hats.
Any time that you have children involved, I think,
most law enforcement officers take on that hat of protector.
The daughters had given phone numbers to the neighbor
where the incident happened, and they called family members.
So family members had showed up at the scene.
[Michael] We needed to get the girls out
of the neighbor's apartment.
We didn't want to expose them to the crime scene,
other than what they already had seen.
And so what we did was, we put blankets over their heads,
and we brought them out with blankets covering,
so they couldn't see any of the blood.
We went ahead and got them safe and secure with the grandmother.
And we began to talk to Tiffany's sister.
[Narrator] Tiffany's sister tells investigators
there are two prominent men in Tiffany's life,
her current boyfriend and the father of her twins,
Darryl Williams.
We learned that Tiffany and Darryl had been together
for seven or eight years, and throughout the relationship,
there had been issues,
and finally Tiffany called it quits with him
because Darryl was known to have other girlfriends.
Now, we have a couple of different options.
Two most important people that we decided we wanted to talk to
was the current boyfriend that Tiffany was seeing,
as well as we wanna speak to Darryl, the ex.
With that, it was determined
that we would divide and conquer.
[music]
[Moises] Myself and Detective Blair,
we get to the boyfriend's residence.
It's about 4:00 in the morning at this point.
When I got there, I was immediately met
with something that was a little bit shocking to me.
[Moises] His garage door is open.
He's got a truck sitting in the driveway.
And he's pacing back and forth inside the garage.
He tells us he's been waiting for us. He knew we were coming
'cause the family had called him to tell him what happened.
He's got a firearm with him inside the garage.
He's in a state of serious stress,
but defense mode as well.
He doesn't feel safe sitting at home.
So we just pulled out a digital recorder where
we could record everything that was said,
and we conducted the interview right there in the garage.
Tiffany's boyfriend was likely experiencing extreme, um, regret
and wondering what he could have or should have done to
protect her, possibly.
I've dealt with lots of people throughout my career.
And I could tell that he was just flat scared.
He was trying to get his kids away from his house
because he didn't know if he was gonna be next.
[Narrator] Tiffany's boyfriend tells investigators
he went trick-or-treating with her and the twins.
They planned on meeting at his apartment after
changing out of their costumes, but Tiffany never showed up.
[Moises] He believed that Darryl had been following 'em
throughout the night.
I think he really kinda just tried to stay away from him.
After talking to Tiffany's boyfriend,
we felt that he had no involvement in the case.
What had become very apparent was
we needed to speak to Darryl.
[Moises] He believed that Darryl had been following 'em.
And he believed that based on the vehicle and the white mask
that Darryl had hanging from his mirror,
which we believed it was the mask that the suspect had on
that night of the incident.
[Michael] We didn't have enough information
to call him the suspect,
but what we did have enough for was to
absolutely have a very hard conversation with him.
[Narrator] The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department
has ruled out Tiffany James's current boyfriend
as a suspect in her murder.
They quickly move down the list to her ex, Darryl Williams.
On November 1st, investigators stop by
Darryl's home to interview him, but he is not there.
We break up into teams. Detectives made contact
with the neighbors, who give us a description of the vehicles
that are routinely at the house.
One of the things that we observed was
a dark in color SUV.
It was similar to the one that Tiffany's boyfriend
had described to us that he had seen following him.
Darryl also had a couple of other vehicles.
He had a green sedan and a gold sedan.
[Narrator] No one mentions the silver car that witnesses saw
fleeing the murder scene.
[Moises] As we're sitting on the house waiting for Darryl,
his daughter comes home. And we interview the daughter.
We let her know why we're there
and that we're looking for her father.
And that Tiffany James had been murdered.
She was upset.
One of her first questions was about the daughters,
'cause those are her sisters,
and she wanted to know if they were okay.
[Michael] One of the things that she told us
that really caught our attention...
She said, "I know what my father is capable of."
She said, "If something's happened to Tiffany,
then my father is your prime suspect."
[Moises] And I'm like, "Well, why would you say--
explain to me why you said that."
And she tells us a story about how her father,
it's his way or no way. And that she remembers when
her father pulled out a gun and aimed it at her mother's face.
[Narrator] It seems Darryl's relationship with Tiffany
had become equally volatile after their breakup.
Darryl's daughter explains her father as a very controlling man
that has a history of violent behaviors.
When Tiffany ended her relationship with him,
that's often a trigger for an escalation of these behaviors.
He had come and harassed her at work. There was some ammonia
poured in a gas tank of one of her cars.
She believed it was Darryl that did that.
They had been in court several times.
It was just a constant tension and stress
between the two of them.
[Narrator] The day before the murder,
Darryl and Tiffany's legal conflict reached a crescendo.
The twin girls, there was a custody battle going on
between the two, and they were in and out of court.
The outcome was, you know, they awarded custody to Tiffany,
and I'm pretty sure he was pissed about it.
[Michael] The courts had sided with her for him to help
financially, and now we have an individual that may be upset
with Tiffany about the fact that he's gonna have to pay
her for next 15 or 16 years.
This was just creating more and more issues for him.
[Moises] The daughter, she had not heard from him since
earlier on Halloween. She found that to be a bit unusual
because she said they were very close,
and they always keep in contact.
And she always knows where he is
and he always knows where she is.
[Narrator] While officers watch the house,
detectives have Darryl's records pulled
and go to speak with the manager
at the chemical plant where he works.
The records were telling us he owed over a $100,000
in back child support.
Child support for all these children that he had
from the different women.
[Michael] When we went and talked to his
place of employment, the first thing they told us,
which was most important for this case, was the fact that
he was not at work on Halloween.
In fact, he was known to work day and night shifts.
They described him as a hard worker
always willing to work overtime.
When they called late to ask for somebody,
he hadn't been available for that night.
[Narrator] It's another red flag for investigators.
As is the fact that Darryl's employers
aren't surprised he's a potential murder suspect.
[Michael] One of the individuals indicated flat out,
he found, uh, Darryl to be explosive at times.
[Moises] He threatened people.
There were people that were scared of him.
He was very combative with people,
very combative with management.
[Michael] He didn't have a very good relationship with
any of his female bosses.
He felt that he was better than them.
He felt like he needed to control them.
[Narrator] Based on the information gathered so far,
the Hillsborough Sheriff's Department
puts out an APB on Darryl's primary vehicle, a gold Camry.
A couple of days after the alert is issued,
a neighbor reports the vehicle is at a residence in the
Clair-Mel area, which is just east of Tampa,
just a few miles away from Tiffany James's house.
[Narrator] Arriving at the location,
detectives find out that the house is owned by
Darryl's latest girlfriend, Rosalind.
Parked outside, they find a gold Camry and a silver sedan
matching the description of the one witnessed at the scene.
She said that the relationship was fairly new.
They were still in that dating stage.
When we asked her if she knew where Darryl was,
she indicated that he had gone to get himself a lawyer.
When we heard this, we thought that that was very interesting.
Although getting a lawyer doesn't indicate one's guilt
or innocence--we're all afforded the right to counsel
here in the United States--
but we hadn't notified him that he was a suspect.
[Narrator] Twenty minutes later, investigators get a call
from Darryl's attorney.
When I learned that the
Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office
would be involved,
I placed a call to the detective and told him,
I, at that point in time, was in contact with Mr. Williams
and that they were not to talk to him under any circumstances.
[Narrator] However, those instructions
don't seem to apply to Rosalind.
[Moises] She called one of our other detectives the next day
and said that she was ready to talk to them.
And they went and did a formal interview with her.
Everything that she told us about Darryl
was one hundred percent different than we had been told
by everybody else at that point.
She told us that he was not controlling, that he was loving,
that he was caring.
She specifically told us that Darryl had no issues
with the twins' mother, Tiffany.
When we asked her where she had been,
where she and Darryl had been on Halloween,
she told us very clearly--
she said that she and Darryl had been together.
She says that Darryl came to her house around 7:00 after work.
They sat on the porch, watched trick-or-treaters.
They had a couple beers. She sat on his lap.
[Michael] She said that at some point early in the evening,
Darryl decided he was tired and he wanted to go to bed.
She said that he went inside and laid down.
[Narrator] Rosalind says she left for a few hours to get food
and run errands. When she got back, Darryl was still there.
She said that when she left earlier in the evening,
sometime around 7:30 or 8:00, Darryl was asleep on the couch.
She said when she came back, sometime around 9:30, 10:00,
Darryl was asleep on the couch.
When she returned at 1:00, Darryl was still asleep
inside the house.
[Moises] During none of that travel was she ever alleged
in the story to have gone to Tiffany James's residence
or anywhere near Tiffany James's residence.
[Michael] After she told us this story and we began to
think about, well, how can we prove or disprove this story?
It didn't make sense.
We walked away going,
"She's not telling us the truth."
[Narrator] Coming up.
Two brave young girls describe the horror
they witnessed on Halloween.
As much as it was a good statement for our case,
I almost dreaded it.
[Narrator] And detectives grow tired of one woman's tricks.
[Narrator] It's been two days since Tiffany James
was murdered in front of her seven-year-old twins.
Now, with the help of a forensic interviewer,
detectives are hoping the girls might be able to confirm
the identity of the killer.
[Allison] Hillsborough County has a Child Advocacy Center
where they can take children who have been victims
or witnesses to situations, and it is an environment
in which is a much more kid friendly--
especially compared to a police station.
[Michael] The first twin that was interviewed,
she started off real strong.
When the interviewer was talking to her about generic things
not specific to the incident or anything like that,
she was fine. She was talkative.
[Moises] But as soon as it, it started to get a little bit
into the what happened that night,
she really broke down and just started crying
and wanted to leave.
Having to discuss something so soon after something
traumatic has happened can be very difficult
and lead to just shutting down and not being able to
discuss any kind of details.
The second twin, the forensic interviewer
started talking to her. She opened up.
She talked very clearly about what had happened that night.
She gave us a couple of little pieces of information
that became very important.
She was articulate, and she spoke about what she saw.
She believed that it was her father based on his body type
and the fact that he's always fussing with her mother.
The twins also reported that, uh, they saw their father having
pictures of the inside of their apartment,
as well as Tiffany's boyfriend's apartment.
The second daughter explained that he had said
that was obtained by a private investigator hired by Darryl,
an attempt to further stalk Tiffany and the family.
As much as it was a good statement for our case,
I almost dreaded it because I didn't want to
have to have those little girls get up on a stand later on
and have to testify against their own father.
[Narrator] With the information from Tiffany's daughters
and Darryl's older daughter, investigators know
Rosalind has to be covering for her new boyfriend.
On November 6th, investigators subpoena her phone records
to find out if she's lying.
Three days later, they get the answer.
[Michael] After we got the records, what we knew definitely
was the story that Rosalind had given us was not the truth.
Her cellphone was nowhere near where she said she had been
on the night of Halloween.
More importantly, what we noticed was that cellphone
was inside of Tiffany's apartment complex.
[Moises] His girlfriend's body stature did not match,
not even remotely close to what the witnesses were describing.
So I knew it wasn't her that did the killing,
but I knew she's involved somehow.
So now the task on our hand is to try and break her down
and get her to tell us what the truth is.
[Narrator] On November 21st, they make their move.
At that point, we made contact with Rosalind.
This time we didn't go to her house to interview her.
This time we brought her to our house.
And we interviewed her in our interview room.
I laid out the evidence. I think I even may have
shown her a map that we had, plotting
where her cell phone was.
She's not where she says she was all night.
And at that point, she starts crying.
Literally drops out of the seat and rolls into a corner,
and just balls up into a ball and starts crying.
[Narrator] But Rosalind still refuses to talk.
[Michael] At that point, she indicated she wanted to leave,
and we let her leave. But we told her when she left,
"Hey, we're keeping your car this time because we have
reason to believe that your car was involved."
We were looking for maybe a mask, some dark clothing,
possibly ammunition, possibly a shotgun,
maybe shotgun shells. What we found was nothing.
[Narrator] On November 24th, investigators give Rosalind
one last chance to come clean.
[Moises] She was nervous, but she was trying to hide it.
And she was trying to act like it was not that big of a deal
to talk to us.
When we got to the office and started the interview,
that's where it all broke open.
And she just broke down and started crying.
[Michael] Rosalind tells us on that night of Halloween,
that she did, in fact, drive Darryl to Tiffany's complex.
[Moises] She said that they were at the house. He asked her
to take him to do something real quick.
She says that she didn't really know what he was going to do.
They drove over to the apartment complex,
and they sat there waiting.
And she was playing video games on her phone.
When Tiffany pulled up,
Darryl Williams got out of her car,
put a mask on, and pulled
what she described as a firearm from his waistband.
At that point, she said she panicked
and just drove off and left.
She said she didn't know what to do.
When she got home, Darryl was there.
She doesn't know how he got there.
[Michael] Based on our experience already
with Rosalind, we still weren't a hundred percent confident
that she was telling us the complete truth.
She's telling us that she left before there was any shooting,
but our witness said that the vehicle left
after the first shot.
[Narrator] Rosalind might not be completely trustworthy,
but prosecutors know she's the best chance they have
of bringing Tiffany's killer to justice.
They decide to offer Rosalind limited immunity
in exchange for her testimony.
[Michael] It gave her immunity for her involvement
in that incident, as long as she was honest about it.
At that point, the state attorney went ahead
and authorized us
to obtain an arrest warrant for Darryl Williams,
charging him with first-degree, premeditated murder.
We felt that probably the safest place
for both Darryl and us was to arrest him at work.
Due to the nature of his work and it being in a port facility,
whenever he gets to work,
he has to go through a security checkpoint.
They check for weapons.
They check for any type of firearms.
[Narrator] When Darryl shows up,
this time, investigators are the ones wearing disguises.
[Michael] A couple of us even dressed as workers there
and waited for Darryl to arrive.
And we surprised him.
[Narrator] Nearly four weeks into the investigation
of Tiffany James's murder,
officers surprise her ex-fiancé,
Darryl Williams, at work,
placing him under arrest for her murder.
Darryl didn't resist arrest. He didn't fight with us.
He tried to pull away a little bit,
but I think because he was shocked because
someone dressed as a maintenance worker was arresting him.
He didn't say anything.
He just indicated he would talk to his attorney.
[Narrator] As prosecutors prepare theircase
against Darryl, they bring in Rosalind one more time
to make sure their star witness has her story straight.
[Michael] By this time she indicated
that not only had she driven Darryl there,
she had also seen the gunshot. And he had actually--
She had actually witnessed Darryl shoot and kill Tiffany.
[Narrator] Rosalind claims she lied
because she was afraid of Darryl and what he was capable of.
I believe that Rosalind went to great extremes
to continue to lie to us for a couple of reasons.
I don't think that she could accept the fact that she may
have inadvertently participated in the murder of Tiffany.
And Rosalind wanted to believe that Darryl was a great guy.
She wanted to believe that this was gonna be her future.
This was gonna be somebody that she was going to always be with.
[Narrator] But Rosalind's changing story
causes further problems.
She had lied the first time, and we could understand why,
to a certain degree.
It wasn't somebody that the prosecution was very excited
about putting up on the stand because we were proving the fact
that she was-- she was willing to lie.
[Narrator] Ultimately, prosecutors decide
not to take the case to trial.
Those two girls having to sit up and testify
and go through the trial process,
that's hard. It's hard on any children.
It's hard on adults to do that.
So in this case, a plea deal was negotiated.
Darryl Williams accepted a plea deal for 20 years in prison
in lieu of life.
It is an appropriate sentence, if indeed the state
couldn't go forth with a first-degree murder.
Twenty years, it seems pretty light.
But again, that sentence is based upon
the facts of the case.
[Dorell] I mean, we were disappointed.
It's just unfathomable, man. It's like, you know--
And you shot my-- You shot my sister in the face
with a shotgun while she's on the ground.
The girls were right there with her.
"Coward" is too good of a word.
It didn't feel like justice, but to avoid any more damage
to the girls, man, I think that avoiding
placing them on the stand
and putting them back in that situation
was the better alternative.
[Narrator] Darryl isn't required to explain his motives
for killing Tiffany as part of his plea agreement,
but a fellow inmate says he knows why Darryl did it.
I drove up to the prison and I did an interview
with the inmate, and he tells me that Darryl Williams
confessed to him that he killed her
because she wouldn't take him back,
and that if he can't have her, nobody else will.
[Michael] He was a monster.
Darryl had absolutely no regard for his children.
The firearm that he used, the shotgun,
very easily his daughters could have been struck by that shell,
by one of the multiple shells that he shot into Tiffany.
He didn't care if he traumatized them.
No father would ever put their daughters
or ever put their children through witnessing that.
[gunshot]
[Dorell] I felt like Darryl snapped 'cause he lost control.
He was more comfortable with her being gone
and out of the picture.
And not in the manner she wanted to
by just moving forward with her life.
As sick and twisted as it is,
I think that was his ultimate vengeance.
[Narrator] Years after Tiffany's death,
October 31st serves as a grim reminder for her community
and her loved ones.
Halloween can be scary for a lot of people in general.
When cases like this happen, it puts those things
and makes those things real. A real threat, a real concern.
I dreaded Halloween. I even would take PTO days
before or after, because I knew I was going to have some sort of
emotional response.
For the twins, this is a life-changing, traumatic event.
They lost their mother, and they also lost their father.
You know, he will be in prison for the next 20 years.
Some of us are, you know, have better coping mechanisms
than the other, but it's still one, you know,
one big gaping hole.
It's heartbreaking, man. It's heartbreaking.
[music]