In the spring of 2022, a dispute over a minor car accident in a parking lot off Versailles Road in Lexington, Kentucky, escalated into a fatal encounter for 40-year-old Ricky Allen Williams Jr. The incident, which occurred on May 1st, began as a verbal argument between Williams and another man, identified as Jerry Price.
The argument quickly turned violent when Price produced a firearm and shot Williams multiple times.
Surveillance footage from two different angles captured the argument behind their vehicles before the shots were fired. The video showed Williams running in front of the cars before collapsing to the ground. When police officers arrived at the scene, they found Williams lying face-down and unresponsive.
Jerry Price, who was 39 years old at the time of the incident, was arrested at the scene and subsequently charged with murder. During his trial, which began in January 2025, his defense attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense. They claimed that Williams had been the aggressor, yelling at Price and mentioning a gun, which caused Price to fear for his and his wife's safety. The prosecution countered that the shooting was an intentional act of murder, emphasizing that a fender-bender should have ended with a police report, not a homicide.
After nearly three hours of deliberation, a Fayette County jury found Jerry Price not guilty of murder but convicted him of the lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter. The jury then moved into the penalty phase to determine his sentence for the death of Ricky Allen Williams Jr.
