Two lives, one killing, one regret

Web Posted: 09/14/2006 07:24 AM CDT

Cary Clack
Special to the Express-News

At the heart of Joan Cheever's provocative book, "Back From the Dead: One woman's search for the men who walked off America's death row," is Walter Key Williams.

He was 19 when, on Feb. 11, 1981, he walked into a San Antonio convenience store and shot and murdered an 18-year-old clerk named Daniel Liepold.

Williams was executed on Oct. 5, 1994. Cheever, a lawyer and journalist born and raised in San Antonio, represented him during his last nine years.

Cheever contrasts their differences despite being from the same city. She was a white female who lived in a wealthy North Side neighborhood. He was a black male who lived in the economically underdeveloped East Side.

On Saturdays, when she was a child, Cheever's mother would take her and her sisters to the Menger Hotel for Shirley Temple "cocktails." Williams' father worked at the Menger and on Saturdays, when he was a child, Williams, would go with him.

Cheever was a member of the San Antonio Country Club when Williams worked there as a busboy. She wonders how often did their paths cross and their eyes meet before they met as client and attorney.

I still wonder what I've wondered for more than a quarter of a century: Why did my childhood friend become a murderer?

Walter and I grew up five houses apart on the same Denver Heights street. Because both of us were short, light-skinned, had Afros and early mustaches, strangers assumed we were brothers.

There's no one who knew Walter who could imagine that this polite, thoughtful and soft-spoken kid would one day kill.

Cheever's book fills in a couple of blank spaces for me.

There came a point in our teens when Walter began to pull away from us. Walter told Cheever that he began to change when, at the age of 14, he learned that he was adopted.

I'd known for years that he was adopted and assumed he knew.

I also knew that his father and his sweet mother drank but I didn't know that Mr. Williams regularly beat Mrs. Williams and that Walter would have to defend her.

He drifted away from us and began hanging around a different crowd and getting high. The last time I saw him was when I was home for Christmas break in 1980. I was outside when he drove by my house with a couple of thugs in his car. He nodded and I nodded back.

I was in college in Houston when the police went to his parents' house to arrest him for murder.

That Walter, of all people, could steal a life still bewilders those who knew him. When I talk with Maurice Abadie, the president of St. Gerard High School (who baptized Walter and remained close to him), and Walter's name comes up, we always end up shaking our heads.

It was painful to read about Walter's last minutes before he was executed, when he asked the Liepold family for forgiveness as tears ran down his face. But it was more painful to read about the Liepold family's grief, a grief that was inexplicably yet undeniably caused by Walter.

In the end, he knew there was no excuse for the inexcusable.

It's always bothered me that Walter didn't reach out to his friends for help. It bothers me more that we didn't reach in to help him.

Take that from this tragedy. When you see a young person drifting away, pull them back. The lives you save may not only be theirs but also someone else's child.

Cary Clack's column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. To leave him a message, call (210) 250-3546 or e-mail at cclack@express-news.net.

San Antonio Express-News publish date Sept. 14, 2006