Lester Williams, a 69-year-old Black man, was found dead inside his home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on the morning of July 18, 2017, after what investigators described as a forced entry that left his neighborhood shaken. Police were already in the area looking into a possible overnight disturbance on the 1600 block of T.Y. Rogers Jr. Avenue when they discovered a residence with the front door kicked in.
Inside, Williams was found on his bed, killed by gunfire, and detectives treated the scene as a homicide from the start as they tried to reconstruct who had come through that broken doorway and why.
In the hours and days that followed, investigators said they had no suspects in custody and urged anyone who knew what happened in those early-morning moments to come forward. The details that emerged painted a grim picture: an intruder had entered the home by force, and Williams was discovered in his bedroom after the break-in. A report from ABC 33/40 included family members describing the loss and identifying Williams as a Vietnam veteran, adding that he was killed on his birthday—an intimate detail that made the violence feel even more personal and cruel.
More than three months later, authorities announced arrests. According to WVTM 13, Cody Williams, 18, was charged with murder and two counts of third-degree burglary in connection with the July 18 killing; investigators said Lester Williams had been found shot to death in his bed at his home on T.Y. Rogers Avenue. Cody Williams was booked into the Tuscaloosa County Jail on October 23, 2017, and his bond was set at $150,000. In the same announcement, a second 18-year-old, Fernandez Britton Jr., was charged with first-degree burglary and booked into jail that week with bond set at $60,000.
Even with those arrests, the case carried enough gravity that Alabama’s governor later issued a formal proclamation describing the killing as the murder of Lester Williams, found dead at his home on July 18, 2017, and emphasizing the importance of apprehending and convicting the person or people responsible—an official marker of how seriously the state regarded the crime and its aftermath.
