Killing of Danny Hansford

According to police statements made by Williams, Hansford had resided in the home for two years and was playing a video game when the argument ensued.

[3] During the argument, Hansford, of whom Williams had been a sexual partner for about two years,[1] pushed over an 18th-century English grandfather clock which stood in the hallway.

The gun jammed upon firing, however, and Williams pulled a 9mm Luger pistol from his desk and shot Hansford in the head, chest and back,[4] in what he claimed was self-defense.

[12] Cook later anonymously received a copy of the police report showing that the arresting officer had contradicted himself about a bullet hole in a floor in Mercer House.

The hole in the floor had been unimportant in the trial; the main points of evidence in Spencer Lawton's case against Williams still remained intact.

In June 1985, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned the conviction again, stating that the sheriff should not have been allowed to testify as an expert, and that the prosecutor waited until his closing argument to demonstrate some evidence.

The fourth and final trial, which was moved to Augusta, resulted in Williams' acquittal in May 1989, eight years after his conviction,[6] after the jury's hour-long deliberation.