Bernice Williams, 32, a Black woman from Chattanooga, Tennessee, was shot in the early hours of January 29, 2019, after a tense encounter inside a home on West Main Street Court spiraled into sudden violence.
According to investigators’ accounts reported at the time, Robert Orr was inside the residence of Jimmy Moore when Moore told him to leave. Orr refused, locked the door, and opened fire, striking Moore in the neck.
As Moore fought to get out and find help, he reported seeing Orr turn the gun on Williams, firing multiple times while Williams remained on the couch where she had been asleep. Both victims were rushed to the hospital, and the wounds described in the reporting made clear how quickly the night had become catastrophic.
In the days that followed, police confirmed that Williams died from the injuries suffered in the shooting. The loss left a family fractured, with reports noting that Williams was a parent of four children.
Not long after the attack, Orr was arrested and initially charged in connection with the shooting. Reports said he fled toward Jasper, Tennessee, traveling with his girlfriend, before law enforcement located him at a motel in Hamilton County and took him into custody.
The case ultimately moved through the courts to a resolution in March 2022, when Robert Rodricus Orr entered a guilty plea to first degree murder for Williams’ killing and to additional charges tied to the attack on Jimmy Moore, including attempted first degree murder and employing a firearm during a dangerous felony. A separate firearm-related count was dismissed as part of the agreement, and the plea carried a 25-year prison sentence to be served at 100 percent, leaving no question in the court record about who prosecutors held responsible for the gunfire that ended Williams’ life.
