In the quiet town of Hollandale, Mississippi, the life of 27-year-old Courtney Cordell Williams was tragically cut short on January 11, 2016. A Black male, Williams was a father to nine children and was known affectionately as 'Corey' to his friends and family. His death, which would be ruled a homicide, sent ripples of sorrow through the community.
On that cold January night, emergency services were dispatched to a residence on Rosenwald Street.
Inside, they found Courtney Williams unresponsive in a bedroom, having sustained a single gunshot wound to his head. Investigators at the scene initially found no firearm or shell casings. However, they later learned that a. 380 caliber firearm had been removed from the house before their arrival. This led them to a nearby apartment complex where the weapon was discovered hidden under an air conditioning unit.
The investigation quickly centered on Akeem Singleton, who was 27 at the time. A search of Singleton's bedroom, located across the hall from where Williams was found, uncovered a. 380 magazine, a projectile, and a shell casing concealed in a pile of clothes. Further evidence came from gunshot residue tests administered to family members who were present; the Mississippi Crime Lab confirmed the presence of gunshot residue on Singleton's hands. An autopsy confirmed that Williams' death was a result of the gunshot wound to the left side of his head.
After a nearly eight-year-long legal process, Akeem Singleton pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the killing of Courtney 'Corey' Williams. During the sentencing hearing, members of Williams' family confronted Singleton, expressing the profound and lasting trauma his actions had inflicted upon them. He was sentenced to twenty-eight years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with twenty-three of those years to be served as mandatory imprisonment, followed by five years of supervised probation.
