4-Year-Old Convicted Of First-Degree Murder

Willard Jimerson, at 13, is perhaps the youngest person ever convicted of first-degree murder in King County Superior Court.

But Jamie Lynn Wilson is dead at 14, and a King County Superior Court jury yesterday found that Jimerson and 25-year-old Kaai Williams were accomplices in her March 11 shooting death.

Jimerson faces at least 20 years in prison. Williams, with several felony convictions already, faces a higher sentencing range. Both reacted stoically to the verdict and were silently led away under heavy guard.

Just hours before the verdict, prosecutors filed felony harassment and intimidating-a-witness charges against Jimerson's mother, Juanita Rolax, and one count of intimidation against his 16-year-old female cousin.

Prosecutors alleged in charges that Rolax and the cousin Tuesday approached a 15-year-old girl, Adrienne Smith, who had testified for the prosecution.

The cousin allegedly fought with Smith while the mother allegedly told bystanders to let the fight continue. They called the girl a "snitch," bystanders said.

Deputy Prosecutors Patty Eakes and Kristin Chandler were able to win the murder convictions despite a series of reluctant witnesses who either failed to show up, changed their stories or claimed to have no memory of the shooting.

One girl testified she was surprised the death was "such a big deal."

Many of the witnesses said they were afraid of retribution.

Smith, who admitted beating Wilson, testified that both Jimerson and Williams shot the girl.

Wilson sneaked out of her mother's Sand Point home late March 10 and sometime after midnight was chased and beaten in the Central Area by a group of girls.

As Wilson sat dazed on the curb on 23rd Avenue near East Cherry Street, she was shot two or three times.

Some of many witnesses at the scene said Jimerson took the gun from Williams and shot Wilson twice. Williams then shot a final time, according to witnesses, saying, "Rest in peace . . . "

The beating was apparently in response to a fight Wilson had with one of the girls a month before. No clear motive was ever established for the killing.

Eakes told jurors before their two-day deliberations: "Willard Jimerson wanted to be a big man, and Kaai Williams wanted to be bigger."

Jimerson, small but street-wise, testified he had nothing to do with the shooting but that he saw Williams standing over the girl with a gun.

Williams did not testify and sat rigidly in place throughout the entire trial.

Jurors hurried out of the courtroom with security escorts immediately after the verdict.

The only other Superior Court murder defendant in recent memory to approach Jimerson's youth was Brooks Wilson Trew, who was 13 in 1986 when he killed a Lake Forest Park resident but 14 when he pleaded guilty of second-degree murder.

Jimerson and Williams will be sentenced in about six weeks.