Alexander McClay Williams (July 23, 1914 – June 8, 1931) was an African-American teenager wrongfully convicted and executed for the 1930 murder of 33-year-old Vida Robare, a matron of the Glen Mills reform school he attended, in Pennsylvania.
[1][2] Williams grew up in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, raised by an illiterate father, and was very physically slight, standing at 4 feet, 7 inches (139 cm) and 91 pounds.
[3] At the time of the murder, Williams was enrolled in the Glen Mills Schools, a reform institution in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, after committing crimes involving arson to a barn that caused $25,000 in damage, and burglarizing a post office when he was 12 years old.
[7][8] Early reports of Robare's killing claimed that Fred, misidentified as her husband, returned home from work on October 3, 1930, and stumbled across the crime scene.
[9] He alerted police afterwards, who arrived to find Robare lying in her bed, partially clothed, with over 35 stab wounds in her chest, a fractured skull, and two broken ribs.
[9] The handprint was photographed by the Pennsylvania State Police and examined by two local fingerprint experts, but it was never mentioned again, either at trial or in contemporary newspaper accounts.
[10][11] Early in the investigation, police posited that the murderer found Robare in bed reading a novel when he attempted to rape her and, upon failing, stabbed her with an ice pick and beat her with an unknown blunt instrument, therefore causing the skull and rib fractures.
However, days later, the confession was amended to reflect that Williams allegedly murdered Robare because she fought against a rape attempt.
[20] At the conclusion of his one-day trial, the jury deliberated for four hours before finding Williams guilty of first-degree murder.
[7] Williams did not appeal his verdict or death sentence,[8] but he did submit an application before the state pardon and paroles board for a commutation.
[26] Relatives claimed his body for burial in an unmarked grave at Green Lawn Cemetery in Chester, Pennsylvania.
Lemon posited that the high number of stab wounds indicated that Vida Robare's murder was motivated by impassioned anger.
[3] Delaware County's Chief Detective, Oliver Smith, declared the day after the murder that "[t]his crime was committed by a full grown and strong man.
Two days after Smith's statement, Williams delivered his confession, which deviated from and failed to account for many of the crime scene's details.
[28] Afterwards, Lemon requested retention of the trial record, citing that "[his] goal is to get this before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and have the conviction vacated.
"[3] In 2022, Keller and Lemon presented their research on the Williams case to Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer.
Stollsteimer was receptive and, alongside Keller, arranged for a hearing before Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas Judge Kevin Kelly, which took place on June 13, 2022.