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Lawmaker looking for systemic change after convicted parent killer released on parole again

After serving nearly two decades in prison for murdering his father and stepmother in 2002, securing parole release in 2023, and a DUI charge just six months later, James Williams III has once again been released from the confines of prison.

Williams was initially handed two life sentences for the fatal shootings that happened when he was 17, in which he partially dismembered the bodies and forced a friend at gunpoint to help him dispose of them. During the trial in 2005, it was also discovered that he murdered both victims in an attempt to attain a hefty inheritance. A 2021 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for Williams to apply for parole, as justices decided juveniles cannot be sentenced to life.

In April 2023, the Mississippi Parole Board voted 3-2 in favor of Williams’ release, sparking a flurry of pushback from the victim’s family, a former prosecutor, and nearly 30 Mississippi House of Representatives members. After Williams was arrested for driving his vehicle into a ditch while intoxicated in October 2023, the board reversed their decision and said he must spend at least one year in prison to reinstate his parole since the charge was a misdemeanor.

The family of Cindy Williams, the murdered stepmother, went to social media after the convicted killer’s latest release. According to Cindy’s biological son, Zeno Mangum, they were expecting a parole hearing for Williams to take place on Sept. 16 but learned secondhand of an early release on a technicality – one the parole board played no part in.

“I desperately need some help getting in touch with Lynn Fitch,” Mangum wrote, referring to Mississippi’s Republican attorney general. “My stepbrother’s lawyer filed some motion to have him released and a judge in hinds co (sic) signed off on it. To be released immediately.”

According to court documents, Williams’ attorney contended that “the Board’s finding that he committed a misdemeanor offense…is a finding that he committed a technical violation of the conditions of his parole.” Because it was the first revocation of parole for a technical violation, counsel argued Williams

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