BY PEG KENYON
Leader staff writer
Ezekiel Lee Williams, 28, of Jacksonville, has entered a plea of not guilty to one felony of first-degree murder stemming from a Dec. 12 shooting at an apartment complex off Quince Hill Road. Williams, who is accused in the fatal shooting of Shoney Tremaine Allen, a 27-year-old Little Rock man, surrendered to law-enforcement officers at the Jacksonville police station late Sunday afternoon. Williams’ bond was initially set at $500,000.
On Dec. 12, Allen suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the upper-right leg nearby his abdomen, police say. Allen was taken to a nearby church parking lot to be airlifted by med-flight personnel but he died before he could be transported. He was officially pronounced dead at 12:50 p.m.—a little more than an hour before he had been shot. Williams whose address is listed apartment #42 off Quince Hill Road was initially identified as the suspect. Williams allegedly fled the area in a silver-colored 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche. Last week, Lt. Richard Ward, assistant public information officer for Jacksonville Police Department, revealed that Williams’ attorney had contacted investigators about possibly turning himself over to local law enforcement authorities either of Thursday night or Friday but those times came and went without a sign of Williams at the Jacksonville police station located off Main St.
So far, no motive has surfaced as to what led up to the Dec. 12th shooting. Jenkins previously indicated that a “scuffle” between the two men may have occurred before the shooting. Through a witness’ acquaintance, it was alleged that Williams was acting strangely on the day of the shooting but this allegation could not be confirmed.
Before police ever arrived to the scene of the shooting, bad news landed on the doorstep of a woman who resides just down the street from the Swiss Village apartment complex where the shooting took place. The woman told The Leader that a young man came to her home seeking help. The woman who reported the shooting explained that a young man knocked on her door saying, ‘My friend has been shot, would you call the police?’
As the call to the police was made, Allen was clinging onto life. Initially, police discovered Allen lying on a walkway in front of apartment #42. Realizing the man was injured, an officer called for an ambulance. Police then launched a search to locate the suspect and a warrant involving a first-degree murder charge was eventually issued against Williams, police say. Prior to Williams’ surrender, police had described as being armed and dangerous. The Dec. 12 fatal shooting marks the fourth murder to occur in Jacksonville this year. Three of those four murder investigations stemmed gunplay.
One of those murders, though, involved an apparent fatal beating of a 2-month-old baby girl. Another incident involved the shooting death of a Cabot teen during an apparent drug-deal-gone-bad incident at Jacksonville High School parking lot, police say. The remaining murder also involved a fatal shooting of another man at an apartment complex nearby Dupree Park off Redmond Road.