Megan Williams is the black woman who was brutalized, tortured, stabbed, forced to eat shit (literally) and raped over a period of a week by six white people living in West Virginia back in August. Her story has fallen off the media’s radar screen, probably because she is not a young, attractive, blonde white woman, but a woman of color.
Indeed, despite the clear racial animus directed at her by her assailants (she was told at the time by one of them “This is what we do to niggers down here”) the grand jury in Charleston, West Virginia declined to indict the defendants for hate crimes. Then when she and her supporters organized a march to rally support for hate crimes charges, the local prosecuting attorney in her case publicly stated that any display of public support for her cause would cause harm to her case. He flat out told her to stop seeking media attention for the horrific bias crimes which were committed against her.
Despite all the attempts to shut her up, Megan Williams is planning to go ahead with the rally and march through the streets of Charleston on Saturday, and continues to speak out regarding the racist hatred that fueled the criminals who assaulted her. And she has continued to speak out about the horror she endured at the hands of her captors in the hope of receiving support for her recovery and regaining media interest in one of the worst racially motivated crimes in recent memory.
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FC [Reporter]: There were some news reports that you had a relationship with one of the defendants, Bobby Brewster. Is this accurate?
MW [Megan Williams]: We were just friends. It was nothing like that.
FC: No dating relationship between you and defendant Bobby Brewster?
MW: No. They kicked me in the head with steel toed boots, they hit me in the head with several objects, I remember seeing a knife, and they tried to cut my foot off. They told me that is what they did to Kunta Kinte when they cut his foot off so he couldn’t run and that is what they were going to do to me.
FC: When exactly was this?
MW: It was like in August. When she (Christa) dropped me off up there, that’s when they started beating on me, and calling me names. When they were hitting me and stabbing me, they called me n—-r, they said ‘this is what we do to n—-rs up here’ and they said they were going to kill me.
They didn’t feed me, didn’t give me no water, they said when they came back they were going to finish me off. They made me eat rat poop, dog poop and human feces. I had to do it to stay alive. They were taking my head and drowning me in a toilet, taking it back out and putting it back in (starting to cry). They were stabbing me in the leg, and I was screaming for my mom, and they would cover my mouth up.
They made me pick green beans out of the garden, they made these switches into a braid and they were whipping me as I was picking the greens. They made me pick weeds out of the garden and they were calling me n—-r and said they were going to take me out to a creek and cut my throat and throw me in a river. All I was saying is I wanted to get back to my mom, and they were like, ‘you ain’t ever going to see your mom ever, ever again, never.’ I wanted to get back home so bad.
FC: When they were forcing you to go out into an open field was this a secluded area where no one could see you?
MW: Nobody seen me, nobody knew where I was at; it was a wooded area.
FC: At any time did you try to scream for somebody to help you ?
MW: Yep, they kept kicking me and stuff and saying that if I screamed again they were going to cut me and all kinds of stuff. […]
FC: Did you ever try fighting back?
MW: I did. I fought back when they would cut me, and they had me taped up with duct tape around my neck, my hands and feet, and when they left to get drugs and stuff, they said they were going to finish me off; they were going to take me down to a river, cut my throat and throw me in it, and I would never get to see my family ever again.
FC: There were several people involved. Who was the most vicious?
MW: All of them passed the knife around when they were stabbing me, all I remember is that when they were stabbing me, I passed out, and I guess that’s when they quit because I passed out, because I lost so much blood. I had noticed the stab wounds and they were this big and my meat was hanging out (shows the location on her left thigh). All I can remember was the knife, and I wake up every night now. That’s the only thing I see when I close my eyes is that knife. […]
FC: Megan, while you were being held there, can you tell us more about what happened?
MW: Yes. Bobby kicked me in my stomach a few times, kicked me in my back and my face and all I remember is that they hit me with several objects, a cedar stick, a fly swatter handle, a belt, a shoe, and you know the gloves with the lead in them, they were smacking me in the face with those. Both my eyes were black and every night, they made me sleep outside.
FC: While they were doing all of these drugs, what were you doing?
MW: I just wanted to get away. I asked one of them if they could let me go, they said no because ‘ain’t no n—-rs allowed up here,’ and they were going to kill me. One day, I was asleep in the room, one of them came in and was kicking me and said ‘hey n—-r, we got a noose out there for you, want to come look at it? We’re going to hang you, come on.’ I got really scared. I just wanted to get out of there. I was fighting for my life.
FC: You said that they cut your hair?
MW: As they would cut it, they were literally pulling my hair out, and pulling it out in patches. They were all sitting on the porch drinking beer, and they had that knife out. Bobby made me lick his mom’s bottom at knife point, and then he made me suck her toes. They were laughing and calling me names. One of them held me at gun point with a 9 mm.
FC: Now where did they have you sleeping?
MW: In the shed. They told me there were no n—-rs allowed in the trailer.
FC: What male members of the group raped you?
MW: Danny (Combs) and Bobby (Brewster).
I don’t know what was going through the minds of the prosecutor or the grand jury members when they heard Megan’s testimony, but to me this is clear evidence of racism motivating the defendants’ criminal acts. I can’t see how a prior relationship of whatever kind with one of the defendants washes away the slurs and racial animus they directed toward Megan, which is all the evidence you need to prove the commission of a bias or hate crime. Those statements are direct evidence of the defendants’ motives. To me it’s a slam dunk, and I’m shocked that the prosecutor was unable to obtain an indictment of the defendants on charges of hate crimes.
I hate to cast aspersions on the prosecutor or the grand jury, but you have to wonder if political pressure has been brought to bear to keep this case hushed up as much as possible. Clearly, a prosecution of Megan’s white assailants for hate crimes would attract more media attention than assault and kidnapping charges. Frankly, this entire situation stinks, and you don’t need to be a lawyer to catch a whiff of the stench emanating from the Prosecutor’s office. His efforts to silence Ms. Williams, and to sabotage her march and rally, is cause enough for the suspicion that his own motives in not obtaining an indictment for hate crimes are politically or racially tainted.
NPR did a segment on this case a few weeks back, but repeatedly presented it as a romantic relationship gone horribly sour, especially when the subject of hate crimes came up briefly.
The specifics of the case blatantly illustrate that race was central to their motivation and their treatment of this poor woman.
Apparently having sex (or just implying you;ve had it) with a member of each race can innoculate you against any future hate crimes prosecution. Seems odd.
As far as I’m concerned rape IS a hate crime.
Absolutely..it doesn’t have anything remotely to do with love or sex.
While we have fallen into the use the of the term “hate crimes” to describe these actions motivated by bigotry, technically we should describe them as “bias crimes”, i.e., crimes in which the the motive of the criminal was based on the race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion of the victim.
Many crimes are crimes motivated by hatred. Bias crimes are crimes which refer to a specific form of hate, a hatred of a person or a group based on certain distinguishing characteristics typically enumerated in a state or federal statute.
I agree that rape is a crime often motivated by hatred, but it is not a bias crime unless the motive for the rape is one based on prejudice against a specific group of which the victim is a member.
shouldn’t this be a capital crime? What? Just because she didn’t die?
I’m against the death penalty, but if it is on the books.
In any case, I don’t care what they charge them with, they shouldn’t ever be free again.
And it is odd that they oppose a rally.
The prosecuting attorney is making a big deal of the fact that the defendants are charged with kidnapping and can get up to 100 years in jail. And that may happen, but that is no excuse for not charging them under the state hate crimes statute as well. Victims often have a relationship or are acquainted with the criminals who assault them, but that’s no reason to ignore evidence of a crime, as the Prosecutor seems to be doing in this case just to make his life easier.
We don’t know what will happen at trial or what the jury may determine is an appropriate sentence for the crimes charged. I suspect the real reason that a hate or bias crime has not been charged is to keep testimony of the racist motivation for the attacks out of the trial. The failure to charge appears to me to be based more on a concern for the reputation of the community than on achieving justice for Megan.
Morally I agree with you but only murder with “aggravating circumstances” can be subjected to the death penalty under Supreme Court jurisprudence.
Maybe I’m just having a bad day but the way the reporter asked or framed some of the questions seems shitty to me….did you try and scream, did you try and fight and even if she had had a relationship with that bastard so what…
Everyone here knows good and well that if she was a young blonde woman and these sickos had been black this would be on the news 24/7-we don’t even have to take bets on that.
There’s another case I never saw mentioned here(or in the ‘white press’)about a young black boy who was 14 and sent to one of those boot camps in Florida..for joyriding in his aunts car. Day or day after he arrived he was beaten to death by 7 guards while a nurse looked on and beating was on tape. The first coroner said he died not from a beating but outside medical problems-yeah right. The case actually got looked into and these guards went on trial for manslaughter…well guess what- they were all found not guilty…a few weeks ago. I think I read that there might be some kind of march or rally about this verdict but am not sure.
I think the reporter was simply providing Megan with the opportunity to respond to critics who claimed that what happened to her was not based on racism, or that she exaggerated what happened to her and could have escaped from her captors if she wanted to do so. In that context, the questions make sense.
I agree that rape is a crime often motivated by hatred, but it is not a bias crime unless the motive for the rape is one based on prejudice against a specific group of which the victim is a member.
I submit that it usually is.
I’ll happily accept usually. It may even be a bias crime if you could show that it was intended as an expression of hatred toward women in general, and intended to terrorize a larger community of women. But I suspect most prosecutors would not go there even of there were evidence of such a motive. They don’t like to prosecute bias crimes as it is.
Well of course they won’t go there. Misogyny is so prevalent and pernicious in our society that most people wouldn’t recognize it if it bit them in the ass.
Misogyny is pernicious..boy that can be repeated over and over and over again…after you explain to some of the population what those words mean.