Joe Williams, a 34-year-old White male, was killed late on September 29, 2016, inside a home on Elaine Drive in Rand, West Virginia. Williams was the fiancé of Lisa Ratliff, whose uncle, Keith Jones, lived at the residence. Williams and Ratliff had reportedly moved in with Jones only a short time before the shooting. The night of Williams’ death also happened to be Jones’ birthday, and investigators said alcohol had been consumed throughout the day as part of the celebration. What began as an apparently ordinary evening inside the home ended suddenly when an argument developed between Williams and Jones.
According to investigators, Ratliff was present in the home but stepped away from the room shortly before the shooting. She later told authorities that nothing had seemed especially unusual beforehand and that the men had been sitting and talking. While she was out of the room, she heard a gunshot. When she returned, Williams had been shot in the head at very close range.
Police said Jones used a. 38-caliber revolver, and an autopsy later confirmed that the weapon had been fired from extremely close range. Williams was already dead when emergency medical personnel arrived.
When West Virginia State Police arrived, they found Jones still at the scene. According to the criminal complaint, he was sitting near Williams and told troopers where the firearm was located. As investigators began questioning him, Jones admitted that he had shot Williams. He later told police that Williams had made a remark that angered him, prompting him to pull the revolver from his pocket and fire. Jones said, however, that he could not remember exactly what Williams had said. Another account from investigators described Williams as having been struck by a single bullet in the head from approximately five feet away.
Jones was taken into custody at the scene and transported to the West Virginia State Police Quincy Detachment for processing before being lodged in the South Central Regional Jail. Authorities initially charged him with second-degree murder, but prosecutors and investigators soon increased the accusation to first-degree murder after concluding at that stage of the investigation that his actions could have involved premeditation. MetroNews reported that Jones was jailed on the first-degree murder charge with bail set at $500,000. In April 2017, Jones entered a not-guilty plea to the first-degree murder charge and was preparing for a trial scheduled for the following month.
The case ultimately did not go to trial. Jones reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Prosecutors explained that the reduced charge reflected the lack of sufficient evidence proving that Jones had planned Williams’ killing in advance. The circumstances established that the two men had argued and that Jones deliberately produced the revolver and fired, but the evidence did not establish the level of premeditation necessary to sustain the original first-degree murder theory.
At Jones’ sentencing in Kanawha County Circuit Court in July 2017, the defense sought a 20-year sentence that could be served on home confinement, pointing to Jones’ health problems, his physical disability, his lack of a significant criminal record and the heavy alcohol consumption surrounding the shooting. Jones’ attorney also told the court that he claimed to have no memory of the shooting or even much of the day on which it occurred. Prosecutors argued that intoxication and an argument did not excuse the decision to pull a gun and shoot Williams in the head. Circuit Judge Duke Bloom likewise rejected the argument as justification for the killing.
Ratliff addressed the court during sentencing and described the devastating effect Williams’ death had on her. She characterized Williams as her soulmate and said that losing him had shattered her life. The killing was especially painful because the person responsible was her own uncle. Assistant Prosecutor Marisa Griska portrayed Jones’ actions as a sudden but merciless decision made with no regard for Williams’ life, while the judge emphasized that an argument, whatever its cause, could not justify shooting another person in the head.
On July 13, 2017, Judge Bloom sentenced Keith Jones to 30 years in prison for second-degree murder. The sentence completed the major criminal proceedings arising from Williams’ death: Jones had been arrested almost immediately after the shooting, initially faced second-degree and then first-degree murder allegations, pleaded not guilty while preparing for trial, later accepted responsibility through a guilty plea to second-degree murder and ultimately received a three-decade prison sentence. The available reporting identifies Jones as the sole shooter and does not describe any additional suspects, accomplices or arrests connected with Joe Williams’ killing.
