In the tight-knit coastal community of Mayport, Florida, James Lee Young was known as a high-spirited young man with a ready smile. Born on May 23, 1983, to Helen Butler and Robert Young, Sr., he grew up in the area and attended Duncan U. Fletcher Senior High School. Friends remembered him as being full of cheer and respect. His life, full of promise, was cut tragically short on the very day he should have been celebrating his 20th birthday.
On May 23, 2003, James became the final victim
in a horrific killing spree that had quietly unfolded inside a double-wide mobile home on Ocean Street. The man responsible was 27-year-old William Edward Wells III, a local tugboat operator who would later be dubbed "The Monster of Mayport." The string of brutal murders began nine days earlier, on May 14, when Wells shot and killed his estranged wife, 30-year-old Irene "Tootie" McMains Wells, during an argument. In the days that followed, Wells systematically murdered anyone who came to the trailer and discovered his crime or aroused his paranoia.
His subsequent victims were Irene's brother, John McMains, 32, and her father, Bill McMains, 60. Another acquaintance, 39-year-old Richard Reese, was also shot and killed. Wells concealed the decomposing bodies inside the home, even as his own four-year-old son continued to live there with him. On May 23, James Lee Young went to the trailer. According to Wells's later confession, he killed Young in a dispute over drugs. James was the fifth person Wells murdered in just over a week.
The gruesome discovery was made only after Wells himself initiated a confrontation with law enforcement. On May 24, he called the police, claiming to be holding his young son hostage. He also called a local newspaper and confessed to the five murders, claiming the first, his wife's, was an accident that led to the others. After a tense 12-hour standoff, Wells surrendered to police shortly after midnight on May 25. Investigators then entered the home and found the bodies of his victims in nearly every room.
In the aftermath, the small fishing village of Mayport was left reeling from the horror that had taken place in the quiet neighborhood. In his obituary, friends and family mourned the loss of a young man taken far too soon, with one person writing, "Still remembering your smile and genuine sweet soul... it still hurts every single time I think of you being taken away at such a young age." Another remembered him as a "young, high-spirited man" and questioned why it seems the good die young.
William Edward Wells III pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder on September 30, 2004, to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to five consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. His violence, however, did not end with his incarceration. Over the next 15 years, Wells was convicted of attempted murder and committed two more murders while in prison. For the 2019 murder of a fellow inmate, William Chapman, which Wells stated he committed in hopes of being moved to death row, he was finally sentenced to death. William Wells remains on death row, his execution date yet to be scheduled.
