narrator: A successful Atlanta businesswoman
makes a panicked call to 911...
narrator: And is brutally murdered before police arrive.
- I remember screaming
because I couldn't believe it.
- Could it have been personal?
Sure.
Could it have been a burglary gone wrong?
We didn't know.
narrator: But when detectives look
into her wealthy community...
- Several neighbors said that they saw multiple people
running from the crime scene.
- Now they realize that it might be a group of bad people
in the community.
That was terrifying.
narrator: They make a disturbing connection.
- Was almost carbon copy to the Pamela Williams case.
[tense music]
- He kept shooting me until I heard
the hammer just click
where there was no more bullets in the gun.
- You had death as your intention
when you came into the house,
and you brought it with you.
These were cold-blooded murderers.
* *
[dramatic music]
* *
[dramatic hip-hop music]
* *
narrator: In 2013, Atlanta is emerging
as a media capital of the South.
That same year, the state of Georgia
generates $3.3 billion from TV and movies.
- Atlanta had started to become the Hollywood of the South.
Major productions were coming here.
Music was still booming here.
- Atlanta is a very happening city.
It's filled with stars and celebrities, things like that.
Due to the sheer number of A-listers in the area,
you're gonna have some of those people
even still on the outskirts of Atlanta
in some of these suburban areas.
narrator: And one of the most exclusive
subdivisions of Atlanta
is the gated community of Amhurst.
Celebrities like Elton John, Cardi B, and Tyler Perry
have all called this affluent neighborhood home.
- It was just a community where everybody felt safe.
People mowed their lawns, planted flowers.
Kids played in the street.
Amhurst was like Mayberry.
* *
- But at 8:00 p.m. on November 30th,
this haven for the Hollywood dream
turns into a living nightmare.
- The 911 call center
in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia,
receive a very panicked phone call
from one of the residents
indicating that she believes someone
was trying to break into her home.
[line clicks]
narrator: The line goes dead.
Less than a minute later, Fulton County 911
gets another panicked call.
- She is already petrified about who is coming.
- You can almost sense that she feels
like something bad is about to happen.
- The perpetrators located Ms. Williams
hiding in an upstairs bedroom closet.
And she was still on the phone with 911
at the time that she was shot.
[gunshot]
- What falls next is silence.
And the silence...
is deafening.
[dramatic music]
* *
- Our patrol units got there
within four minutes of that call,
went to the back of the house,
found the entry.
* *
- Visually, we could see that someone forced entry
into the rear of the home.
* *
Once we enter the home, there were a few lights on.
It's been confirmed through dispatch,
someone was inside the house.
We don't know how many people,
if they're armed or unarmed.
So I'm being prepared for that possibility
of engaging someone into a gunfight
or a physical altercation.
As we move through the kitchen and main living room,
no one's in there.
Then we get to the stairway,
and we have to make our way up the stairs.
We get to the master bedroom...
* *
And we can see Pamela slumped over in the closet.
* *
She was moving. She was conscious.
And she was breathing.
* *
That's when we noticed that there was a gunshot wound
in the center of her forehead.
[gunshot]
* *
[indistinct police radio chatter]
narrator: Police backup soon arrives.
They secure the scene
and confirm the shooter is gone.
* *
- I stayed with Pamela.
And as I was with her, I could see her eyes
glazed over a little bit.
She was struggling breathing.
And I was just giving her encouragement,
trying to keep her conscious
and give her a will to fight for her life.
narrator: When medical personnel arrive,
they quickly load Pamela into an ambulance
and rush her to nearby Grady Memorial Hospital.
Law enforcement notifies Pamela's family
who rush to her side.
- The doctor came into the room where I was sitting,
and they told me that the injuries that she sustained,
you know, most people don't make it with those injuries.
And I remember screaming.
* *
Because I couldn't believe it.
* *
I've always known she was special.
She was always driven.
- When she finished college,
that's when she started at Target.
She started as one of the, I think, assistant managers
and moved up to a manager.
* *
narrator: Pamela always placed others' needs before her own.
In 2011, she proved that beyond measure
when her sister Erica fell ill.
- Erica had to have a kidney transplant,
and Pam was her donor.
- I remember always thinking that it's just
too much to ask anybody to do.
And I remember her telling me, you know,
that her life needed to have some meaning and purpose.
It was absolutely Pam in a nutshell.
* *
- Pam was loving.
She was caring.
She made sure everybody was taken care of.
[tense music]
narrator: Back at the crime scene,
police begin their investigation
in the bedroom closet where Pamela was found.
- One of the strange things about the closet
was, we didn't have a shell casing.
Did they have the wherewithal to clean up after themselves?
What's going on?
narrator: Without an exit wound,
detectives suspect the bullet
is lodged in Pamela's head.
- One of the things that I saw that was particularly odd
was, there were valuables that were in plain view.
- Could it have been a burglary gone wrong?
* *
Could it have been personal, targeted?
Sure. We didn't know.
- I knew that we had our work cut out for us
because there were a lot of mixed signals
that we had found.
narrator: CSI processes the house,
collecting various pieces of evidence
to test for DNA and fingerprints.
[dramatic music]
Next, the team expands their search
beyond Ms. Williams' home.
- This crime occurred before
everybody had Ring cameras
and high-tech surveillance systems on their home.
So a lot of the investigative was boots on ground,
people talking to people.
narrator: Police ask Pamela's next-door neighbors
if they saw or heard anything,
but the only piece of information they offer
is that Pamela lived alone.
- We didn't know the motive.
We had nothing concrete to go off of at that time.
narrator: As detectives continue
with the investigation,
Pamela's family must deal with the unthinkable.
Their beloved Pamela has been declared brain-dead.
- The nurses said they could let her
stay on the ventilator, which was making her breathe,
until they felt it necessary to just stop.
So I went in, and I just had my little time with her.
I just told her how much I loved her
and it's hard
and I was gonna miss her.
[sniffles]
[sobbing]
* *
narrator: Pamela is taken off life support
and passes away surrounded by her loved ones.
* *
- I just held her hand.
And I still now, I still can see her hand.
I still can see it.
* *
narrator: With the case now a homicide,
the team orders an autopsy to check for any clues
that could lead them to Pamela's killer.
- The autopsy report revealed that Ms. Williams,
you know, suffered a close-contact,
press-contact wound.
* *
- If you have a victim with a press-contact wound,
that was a person who was intentionally shot.
* *
narrator: Unfortunately, the ME reports
the bullet that killed Pamela
broke into pieces upon entering her body,
making it impossible to ID the murder weapon.
* *
Detectives reach out to Pamela's loved ones
to find out who in her life could have had the motive
to kill her in such a personal manner.
- Police asked me, did I know anybody
who would want to hurt her?
And I did not.
It was no one that I could think of
that would do that.
* *
narrator: But Pamela's family does provide
some useful information.
- While speaking with the family, we do know
that Ms. Williams was in an on-again, off-again
relationship with a man, Otis.
And whenever you're trying to establish motive,
statistically speaking, yes, you know,
someone that you're seeing is-- there is a high probability
that they could be involved.
So what was their relationship like?
Were there troubles?
We needed to find out some of those details.
- There was a similar case that had occurred
approximately 12 months prior.
- Female home alone.
Female calls 911.
- I was praying that they would just go away
and not find me.
But they found me.
* *
sic] narrator: Atlanta detectives working the murder
of 43-year-old Pamela Williams have just received word
she was in a romantic relationship
shortly before she was murdered in her bedroom.
The team tracks down Pamela's alleged boyfriend, Otis.
* *
- We had a person who was shot, press contact to the head.
It was personal.
And we know that domestic violence
is real.
We always look at that first.
narrator: When investigators speak with Otis,
he's saddened to hear about Pamela's death.
He says they were only dating a short time.
- And Otis had an alibi. He checked out.
You know, he was in no way related
or involved in this matter.
- He had no violent past that we knew of,
also had no violent criminal history.
If anything came up in the future,
we could put him back on our radar.
But based on what we knew
and the information that we had on him,
we did eliminate him as a suspect.
We didn't have anything.
* *
We're once again back to square one.
We are delving deeper into Ms. Williams' past,
her lifestyle, her work.
- She worked as a manager at the local Target store,
which was a superstore.
She was responsible for hundreds of employees.
- She was in a position of leadership.
You know, is this a situation
where there was an employee relationship
where she may have had to fire someone or something?
Maybe there was a grudge or something.
So our next step was to go and speak
with members of management there.
We wanted to make sure that we vetted out
all of these different things, you know,
to make sure that we had no stone unturned.
* *
- They had no information on anybody harassing her,
there being any workplace drama regarding her.
There was nothing.
It was the same theme.
All the employees loved her.
- You know, all you had, it was just a bunch
of people that were deeply impacted
by the loss of Ms. Williams, who, you know,
touched the lives of so many people.
- So we were, at this point, at a dead end.
We had no leads.
We were waiting for something to break.
narrator: Then detectives get word from the crime lab.
They have results on the fingerprints
found at the scene.
- Forensics on this case showed prints.
But the prints were either the victim, Pamela Williams',
or they were inconclusive.
- Anytime you get a print,
you're hoping that there's evidentiary value there.
But when you find out it has nothing
to do with the suspect, obviously, that's a letdown.
But you just keep hammering away
to see if you can find something else.
* *
narrator: With no forensic evidence and no suspects,
the team returns to Pamela's neighborhood of Amhurst
to ask residents in the gated community
if they remember anything suspicious
from the night of the murder.
- In canvassing the Amhurst subdivision,
especially the street and adjacent streets
where Pamela Williams lived,
several neighbors said that they saw shadows
running through their backyard.
And multiple neighbors said they saw multiple people
running from the crime scene,
which, to us, told us there were multiple suspects
in this crime.
Finally, this was the break that we needed.
Now we were able to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
narrator: The neighbors tell police
they saw some shadowy figures
running through a popular walking trail
surrounded by a wooded area.
- The neighborhood, pretty much a circle.
Then you cut through a wood.
You're on another street.
narrator: The team's next step is visiting the trail
to see if the perpetrators left any evidence behind.
- And walking the trails yielded no forensic results.
But the trails lead deeper into the neighborhood,
and the suspects are running towards the middle,
back into the subdivision.
- It led us through some trees
and wood line and all that
and came out on another street.
So we believe that that was the route
that the perpetrators fled.
- Our patrol units got there within four minutes
of the 911 call.
They did not observe any vehicles leaving
at a high rate of speed.
Therefore, it was a safe assumption
that the perpetrators lived inside the subdivision.
* *
- What many people thought was just a one-man band,
now they realize that it might be a gang
of people in the community.
That was terrifying.
* *
narrator: Investigators must consider the possibility
that Pamela's murder isn't the first crime
these perpetrators have committed in Amhurst.
The team combs through police records
from the past several months,
and they discover there's a dark underbelly
to this picturesque community.
- Though Amhurst was a quiet community
and a well-to-do community,
they've been riddled with burglaries
maybe for the past two years, from 2011 to 2013.
They have had no fewer than, I would say, 75 burglaries.
All the previous burglaries have been just property crime
but nothing violent.
narrator: Detectives assess that this two-year cluster
of nearly identical burglaries
in the same wealthy neighborhood
must have been perpetrated by the same robbers
and that the break-in at Pamela's house fits the MO.
- Suspects in this case have upped their game
from theft and burglary to murder.
- We surmised that the person that shot Ms. Williams
didn't want to leave her as a witness.
Hence the press contact to her head.
So a burglary trying to cover up the tracks,
that's the direction that we were going in at that point.
* *
narrator: Fulton County homicide detectives
are investigating the murder of Pamela Williams.
The team has just uncovered a string of similar burglaries
in the affluent area,
and investigators fear the criminals may have shifted
from robbery to murder.
* *
- A number of people had experienced home burglaries,
but it had not risen to what the Pamela Williams case
had risen to.
They were worried before,
because you're gonna break in my house,
you're gonna take my property,
OK, that's a problem.
But now you're gonna break in and kill me?
And so now people are really scared.
narrator: As lead detectives Hamilton and Smith
continue researching burglary cases
surrounding Pamela's home,
they uncover another recent victim
from a nearby neighborhood
whose case bears a shocking resemblance.
- The case had occurred approximately 12 months prior.
And it involved a woman by the name of Melissa Burke.
* *
- Melissa Burke's case was almost carbon copy
to the Pamela Williams case.
* *
Female home alone.
Female calls 911.
Female gets shot while on the phone with 911.
narrator: While the crimes are strikingly similar
and about a year apart,
there's one important difference between the two.
- Angels were smiling on Melissa Burke that night,
because she ultimately recovered from those injuries.
* *
narrator: At 10:00 p.m. on January 3, 2013,
Melissa called 911 from her home in Chestnut Ridge,
approximately five miles from Pamela's residence.
- My husband was traveling at the time,
so I was in the home alone.
I was in my pajamas, ready for bed,
winding down from the day.
And the doorbell rang.
[doorbell rings] I wasn't expecting guests.
I didn't answer it,
under the assumption that they would go away.
And the doorbell rang again. [doorbell rings]
And this time, I got out of the bed
to look out of the window.
And I saw two young men
walking away from the porch.
I didn't recognize them.
Several minutes later,
I'm upstairs in the master bedroom,
and I can hear the noise... [squeaking]
Coming from one of the bedrooms
down the hallway.
And I can't make out what it is.
And then I realize
someone's coming in through
the window in the bedroom.
I can remember calling 911.
And I do remember saying,
someone's trying to break into my home.
So I went into the closet in the master bedroom.
And I heard footsteps all over the house.
I said, there's more than one.
And I can tell you, what I was doing in that closet
was praying to God for my safety,
praying that they would just go away and not find me.
* *
But they found me.
* *
When he ripped that door open,
I just remember looking at him
and seeing how young he was.
And then that was the eye-to-eye contact exchange.
And I really sensed that the first gunshot
was just an accident, or I thought that.
But then he kept shooting me.
[gunshots]
And he kept shooting me until I heard
the hammer just click
where there was no more bullets in the gun.
* *
- You shot a 50-something-year-old
retired army veteran
as she laid cowering on the floor
in her bedroom closet, begging for her life.
And you shot her
not once, not twice,
but pretty much until you emptied your gun.
What kind of person do you have to be
emotionally, psychologically
to do something like that?
- By that time, the others that were all over the house
ran in behind him.
They asked, you know, what's going on?
The only thing I heard was,
"Let's just get out of here.
She's dead."
* *
narrator: Detectives learn
that when police arrived at Melissa's house,
they spotted something suspicious.
- The patrolling unit for Melissa Burke got there
as the getaway vehicle was fleeing the scene.
The unit turned around on the vehicle,
gave quick chase in the subdivision.
The vehicle crashed out,
and the multiple occupants fled the car.
narrator: Police chased the suspects on foot
but were unable to apprehend them.
Law enforcement then returned to the car they abandoned
and ran the license plate.
They discovered it was reported stolen
just hours before Melissa's attack.
- Police were also able to recover valuable evidence.
A cell phone was recovered outside the vehicle.
The phone found near the vehicle
came back to someone with a criminal history
involving multiple thefts and burglaries.
- Now we could put some meat on the bones
in this investigation that can stick.
* *
So the media put it out there
in the public stratosphere,
because it brings pressure
on the assailants in this crime.
- It was the reporting of that story
that prompted the phone call to law enforcement officers
to give very, very critical information.
- That was a pivotal break in this case.
* *
narrator: Detectives investigating
the Atlanta murder of Pamela Williams
have just come across Melissa Burke's case,
an eerily similar crime that occurred 11 months earlier.
While investigators have no suspects in Pamela's murder,
they did find a cell phone near Melissa's crime scene
that belongs to a known criminal.
- The phone found near the vehicle
came back to James Calhoun.
He had a criminal history
involving multiple thefts and burglaries.
- Fulton County Police brought him in
for an interview regarding Melissa Burke.
They said, hey, there was a burglary,
lady shot 12 times,
and stolen car, and we found your phone on the scene.
Can you explain this?
He smiled and said no.
He said that he lost his phone.
[dramatic music]
narrator: Unfortunately, when investigators questioned
Ms. Burke about the shooting,
she was unable to assist with the investigation
due to the severity of her injuries.
- I was in the hospital three to four months.
Obviously, mentally,
I couldn't even hear a doorbell.
- James Calhoun was the lead suspect for that incident,
but they had no evidence that would stick
to put him at Ms. Burke's house.
They did not have enough for an arrest warrant.
* *
narrator: While detectives suspected Calhoun
was involved in Ms. Burke's attack,
they lacked concrete evidence tying him to the shooting,
and the investigation turned cold.
But now, nearly a year later,
investigators find striking similarities
between Melissa's attack and Pamela Williams' murder.
- The 911 calls provided a connection
between the Melissa Burke home invasion and shooting
and attempted murder
to the Pamela Williams home invasion,
shooting, and actual murder.
My theory was that the perpetrators
evolved from Melissa Burke.
So I went in. I shot 12 times.
By all accounts, she ought to be dead.
But she wasn't.
She survived.
By the time you evolve over 12 months,
you have evolved to the point
that we're not leaving any witnesses.
And that's why Pamela Williams got what she got.
That's my theory.
narrator: Although detectives are convinced
the two cases are linked
and suspect James Calhoun was involved in both attacks,
they still don't have enough evidence to make an arrest.
- Knowing the background of James Calhoun
and his criminal history,
obviously, you want to say in your mind
you've established him as a potential suspect,
but we can't directly link him to the crime.
narrator: Desperate for concrete leads,
police turn to the media
to see if anyone will come forward
with information about either case.
- So the media put it out there
in the public stratosphere
because it brings pressure
on the assailants in this crime.
Maybe they might make a mistake.
Maybe they may talk
to the wrong person about it
to ask for help.
- Some say they are concerned for their safety
after the murder of 43-year-old Pamela Williams.
If you have any information,
you're asked to call Crime Stoppers.
- It was covered for every newscast.
And because people were very worried,
what they wanted to talk about was,
how are we gonna get this person off the street?
narrator: Then on December 4, 2013,
five days after Pamela's attack,
the media blast pays off with a call from someone
who thinks their own son, Jonathan Banks,
could have been part of this brutal murder.
- It was the reporting of that story on a consistent basis
that prompted the father of Jonathan Banks
to actually place a phone call to law enforcement officers
to give very, very critical information.
* *
- Jonathan Banks used to live in the Amhurst subdivision,
and he was running with the wrong crowd.
And he had just come out of prison months earlier.
* *
- Jonathan Banks actually came to his father
and told him that he needed to borrow a large sum of money.
He needed to get away very suddenly, very far away,
where no one could find him.
And he was very reluctant to reveal
the actual reason why he wanted to flee.
narrator: Banks' parents explain their son
has been arrested multiple times
for robberies targeting wealthy homes in the area.
And with Banks' criminal history
combined with the fact that they haven't seen him in days,
his parents are concerned as to why their son
is begging for money to go on the run.
- They said that they heard about the Amhurst murder
on the news.
And the mother said she could not imagine
what Pamela Williams went through.
And if her son had anything to do with it,
then she wanted to do the right thing as a mother.
narrator: With this information,
detectives wonder if Jonathan Banks' bad crowd
includes James Calhoun,
the suspect in Melissa Burke's shooting.
- We had another name now,
a name I'd never heard before in Amhurst
but a name I would hear a lot more in the future.
* *
That was a pivotal break
in this case.
narrator: Detectives immediately
start searching for Banks
to question him about Pamela's murder.
But he's nowhere to be found.
Then on December 10, 2013,
ten days after Pamela's murder,
investigators get intel that changes everything.
- A credible witness well connected
to one of the perpetrators
calls our murder case division.
They say that James Calhoun, James Sims,
and Jonathan Banks committed this crime
and admitted to them everything that they did.
* *
narrator: Atlanta detectives have just received
a promising tip
about the brutal murder of Pamela Williams.
A woman contacted the homicide office
and identified three men--
James Sims, James Calhoun, and Jonathan Banks--
as the perpetrators for Ms. Williams' case.
* *
- When we find out that James Calhoun was involved,
it hearkened back to the Melissa Burke case
and his alleged involvement there.
- This witness informs police that Jonathan Banks
had come by her home and had shared with them
details about the Pamela Williams murder.
- The witness said Jonathan Banks
arrived at the victim's home,
where he already sees Sims and Calhoun
leaving the back, like they were startled
and taking off running.
The witness said it was at that point
where Banks explained he went inside to see
what he could find to steal.
- Banks tells this credible witness
that he saw Ms. Williams and she startled him.
So he panic shot
and did not mean to shoot.
[gunshot]
But we know that's a lie
due to the press-contact wound that she suffered.
narrator: The witness is able to positively identify
Banks, Calhoun, and Sims.
* *
- There was the ultimate irony that existed in this case.
It was that the people who were ultimately responsible
for committing this horrific crime
were really hiding in plain sight.
* *
They lived in homes that their parents
had worked hard to obtain.
So it was just ironic that these individuals
chose to victimize
exactly the same kinds of people
that their parents were.
* *
- When the information came in from the independent witness
regarding the suspects,
that coupled with the shooter's father coming forward,
we had enough at that point
to go ahead and move on warrants
for those that we felt responsible.
* *
narrator: Investigators obtain arrest warrants
for Jonathan Banks,
19-year-old James Calhoun,
and 20-year-old James Sims.
Less than a week later,
one of the suspects is apprehended.
- I received word on December 17th
that U.S. Marshals had located Jonathan Banks
and had him in custody.
It was only a day or two later, on the 19th,
where Sims and Calhoun
were also taken in custody by the U.S. Marshals.
* *
narrator: The three suspects are charged with burglary
and the murder of Pamela Williams.
All three plead not guilty.
Unfortunately, Ms. Burke's case
is currently at a standstill.
- On the Burke case, you have to have
at least one other piece of corroborating evidence.
narrator: Unlike Pamela's case,
no one came forward delivering key information,
like Jonathan Banks' parents
and the female witness who heard Banks' confession.
- The defendants lawyered up.
They haven't admitted to it.
It's still an open case.
To this day, we're still lacking that piece
of corroborating evidence.
* *
narrator: Now the district attorney's office
is tasked with securing guilty verdicts
for all three men.
They start by searching for physical evidence
that ties the suspects to the robberies.
- Typically, burglars have, as a course of their conduct,
taking items of value to pawnshops
to see if they can trade them for money.
And so in this case, we were able to find
a central pawnshop that was used
over and over and over again by these defendants.
narrator: With documents proving the suspects
pawned dozens of items that were stolen
over several months,
DA Clint Rucker and his team
tie Banks, Calhoun, and Sims to over 100 burglaries
in and around the Amhurst area.
- It was very clear to me
that the persons that we were dealing with,
they weren't just a bunch of, you know,
mischievous kids
who were just running around, you know,
trying to scrape up a couple of bucks.
These were cold-blooded murderers.
Because by the time you get to the point
that you're bringing a loaded handgun to commit a burglary
and get close enough to Pamela Williams
to actually put the muzzle of the gun to her forehead
and pull the trigger while you're looking in her eyes,
oh, yeah, you had death as your intention
when you came into the house.
* *
narrator: In October of 2016,
nearly three years after Pamela's murder,
the perpetrators go on trial
and have been given a chilling moniker.
- They were the Amhurst Death Squad,
because that's what they were.
They brought death.
And so I tried to do the very best I could
to hold them responsible
and to convince that jury that they were guilty.
narrator: Pamela's family is relieved
the killers are finally on trial.
But facing all three in person is another matter.
* *
- They were laughing at the table then,
the people that killed my sister.
And they could speak to their families.
My sister's dead.
So to see them every day
and to see how they interact
and how they interact with their families,
that took a toll on me.
narrator: While Rucker is confident
the three men are Pamela's killers,
he'll have to convince a jury of their guilt
with little forensic evidence.
- The case still had some things
that I knew prospective jurors would wrestle with,
like the fact that there was not
an independent eyewitness to the actual crime itself,
no fingerprints that were found
inside of the home of Pamela Williams,
and the fact that the murder weapon itself
was never recovered.
Those were all things that kind of caused
a degree of concern for a prosecutor.
narrator: But despite these challenges,
Rucker has one piece of evidence
he knows will get the jury's attention.
- One of the things that I did during the trial
was to bring a sense of the horror
that Pamela Williams
experienced in the moments
prior to her murder.
narrator: Rucker plays Pamela's 911 call
for the court.
[gunshot]
narrator: After immersing the jury in the terror
of Pamela's final moments,
Rucker introduces the one witness
who can attest to the horror.
- Melissa Burke.
I called her to the stand as a witness
to tell the jury about her experience
during her home invasion,
which was so eerily similar to the Pamela Williams case
that it was relevant to help the jury understand
this was just not a random act
in the Pamela Williams case, but it was something
that was deliberately done by these defendants.
* *
- As soon as I walk into the courtroom and take my seat
and look over to the defense table,
I see this guy.
I know that's him.
* *
narrator: In Atlanta, [three suspects]
in the Pamela Williams murder are finally on trial.
As Melissa Burke, a victim of a similar shooting,
enters the courtroom
to testify on Ms. Williams' behalf,
she spots someone frighteningly familiar.
* *
- As soon as I walk into the courtroom and take my seat
and look over to the defense table,
I see this guy.
I know that's him.
narrator: Melissa has not seen any of the defendants
since the night she was attacked.
- I just refuse to be a victim.
* *
I was testifying.
The defense attorney called me Ms. Williams.
She did it twice.
* *
And I remember saying, it's OK.
You can call me Pamela Williams.
I am her.
It's her telling me, be brave, tell my story
so that justice is done.
* *
I definitely feel a connection to her.
* *
- That moment was profound.
For her to take on the persona of my sister
and speak for her, that takes a standout person.
She's a walking miracle.
* *
- One of the things that occurred during the testimony
of Melissa Burke is that she was able
to positively identify the person who actually shot her.
* *
- I saw him, and I remembered
when we locked eyes in the closet
and I looked at him and he looked at me.
Part of my recollection is, you know,
me looking at this boy and,
I mean, are you really
standing there shooting me?
[gunshot]
It was letting him know...
[gunshots]
I'm not afraid to say it's you.
If you think I'm afraid to say that it's you,
that's not the case.
* *
- James Calhoun, he ultimately
was the person that Melissa Burke identified
as being her shooter.
* *
narrator: After Melissa's emotional testimony,
the prosecution rests their case.
The jury is excused to their chambers.
But a day passes,
and Rucker gets word that they still
haven't reached a verdict.
* *
- The jury has to reach a decision with respect
to each charge as to each defendant.
And so the verdict in this case took some time.
The anticipation of the verdict,
it's always a very tense, a very anxious time.
* *
narrator: After two full days of deliberations,
the jury finally has a verdict.
- After careful deliberation,
the jury found each one of the defendants
guilty of each and every charge.
narrator: James Sims and James Calhoun
are sentenced to life with the possibility of parole,
while Jonathan Banks, the triggerman,
gets life without parole.
- I think that Melissa Burke moved
the jury to a place of saying, OK, these guys are guilty.
* *
- When I heard there was a guilty verdict,
you find some type of closure,
and there is a sigh of relief.
But sending three people to jail
does not bring my sister back.
So it's great that they go to jail,
but what does it mean really?
narrator: Now Pamela's family must find a way
to continue their lives without her.
- There has been a shift, I feel like,
in the way that our family operates now.
So we always were together for birthdays and holidays.
And so now we will get together,
but somebody's always missing.
Pam is missing.
So it's harder.
- I think when you care about someone so much,
you can't really quantify the things that you miss.
It's their complete essence.
So there is not one isolated thing
that I miss about my sister,
'cause my sister was my hero.
I loved everything about her.
* *