With the criminal record Leslie Allen Williams had, many can only wonder why he was out on the street in the first place.
The 39-year-old parolee had a history of attacks on women over the past two decades. On Wednesday, after his arrest on charges of abducting a woman in his car trunk, he confessed to killing four teenage girls, police said."Leslie Allen Williams should never have been on the street. There are four girls dead because of it," Sheriff John Nichols said.
"I think the entire system needs an overhaul. . . . If we reject the premise of capital punishment, then we should adopt the punishment of isolation."
The Detroit man was in jail Friday on $1 million bail on charges of abducting a woman from a cemetery where she had placed a wreath at her mother's grave. She was found in his trunk Sunday, her hands bound with plastic straps.
That attack prompted investigators to look for links between Williams and other missing women and girls.
They also became suspicious when Williams said at his arraignment Monday: "I don't belong on the streets. Everybody's probably safer with me in here."
"It was the statement of someone who needs help," the sheriff said.o
A tip from an ex-girlfriend of Williams led police Wednesday to the body of Kami Marie Villaneuva, 18. She had been buried in a field. Investigators said Williams then confessed to the four slayings and led authorities to the shallow graves of Cynthia Jones, 16, and sisters Michelle and Melissa Urbin, ages 16 and 14.
Villaneuva was strangled, and Jones was stabbed in the chest, the Oakland County medical examiner's office told WJBK-TV. The Urbin sisters were smothered, The Oakland Press reported today. It cited no sources.
Three of the victims were reported missing in September. Jones was abducted from a park at knifepoint Jan. 4.
Williams wasn't immediately charged in any of the deaths.