Man convicted in grad student's rape, torture

[Bacchus39]

Source: CNN

Man convicted in grad student's rape, torture

NEW YORK (AP) -- An ex-convict was found guilty Tuesday in the rape and torture of a Columbia University graduate student who survived 19 hours of nightmarish sadism in which he scalded her with boiling water and attempted to blind her before trying to burn her to death.


Robert Williams was convicted of attempted murder, rape, kidnapping, arson and other charges in the attack.

Robert Williams was convicted of attempted murder, rape, kidnapping, arson and other charges in the attack, which was so prolonged and agonizing that the victim begged her tormentor to kill her and later tried to kill herself.

The verdict followed a gruesome trial that included dramatic testimony from the victim, who said Williams, 31, made her swallow fistfuls of painkillers, ordered her to gouge out her eyes with scissors, sealed her lips with super glue and gagged her with duct tape before torching her apartment.

Williams, who was found guilty of all but two of 46 counts, was not in court to hear the verdict read. The judge said that when Williams was told a verdict had been reached, he simply turned over in his courthouse cell and went back to sleep.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/24/grad.student.torture.ap/index.html

[happygoluckytoyou]

1. sorry friends.... i'm OKAY with the death penalty on this

[tom_paine]

2. Yep. I have always been a death penalty supporter, and this is one reason why.

This guy might LIKE life imprisonment. After all, the strong can terrorize the weak in prison usually without fear of reprisal, etc.

No, this man needs to be put to death, for the good of society.

NOTE to people against the Death Penalty: I do see some of your points about the way it is excessively applied to minorities and the system certainly does need some fixing & monitoring.

[AlexDeLarge]

3. Right there with you on this one

I am 99.9% against the death penalty because I just don't believe that it's an effective deterent. But every once in a while there's a case where the crime is so heinous and the perpetrator so remorseless that I thinks it's better for everyone that there be no chance of any further possibile recurrence.

[John Q. Citizen]

5. Are you sorry because you are ashamed of your desire to see the state carry out revenge on your

behalf?

[DS1]

6. Yep

kill the motherfucker slow

[go west young man]

8. governments (When civilized people) rationalize killing other human

beings in any way shape or form then the larger sublime message below the surface is that killing is ok for the government sanctions it. For us to be truly evolved all human killing, torture, war must stop. We've a long way to go. I understand there are sadistic murderers out there and they could possibly do this to people I love too but if I become bitter or full of hate because of their horrible actions then I too have lost my human essence. Personally I'm an optimist I would choose love over anger and killing. All these abominable acts need to stop. The one's the government causes (wars, death penalty) and the one's caused by individuals. I can't believe this is 2008. We are just as savage as we were in the Middle Ages. Saddam Hussein's hanging proved that once and for all. We've a long way to go. Some of these comments on DU of all places prove that without a doubt. I thought liberal minds were supposed to go a little deeper. Personally I think the war and the right wing media's effect on the U.S. psyche has led to this type of thinking/rationalization amongst many of us. We have to become more civilzed.

[riverdeep]

11. While I understand your point,

killing is not created equal. Killing in self-defense is not the same as killing for gain. As far as I'm concerned, society would be protecting itself by taking his life. And the taking of his life is nothing like what he did to his victim. He'll get years of appeals, food and lodging, representation by law, and when the time comes, a relatively painless death. This guy is also an ex-con for, surprise, attempted murder.

I read about this case a couple days ago, and couldn't believe it. This past here is interesting:

"The nearly three-week trial was unusual in that the defendant was in court just once for a few hours. He was forced to show up on the day the victim testified and pointed him out to the jury as her rapist and torturer."

Also:

"The judge said that when Williams was told a verdict had been reached, he simply turned over in his courthouse cell and went back to sleep."

You can do that? You don't have to show up to your murder trial?

[go west young man]

14. In the short term of man's limited so called civilized existence it's quite easy to see

that killing only leads to more killing. When governments get serious about education instead of war/state sponsored death maybe then one day we can call ourselves civilized. Monsters like this madman could be something else earlier in life if society was to change it's primitive thinking. As far as the rest of your post I'm not sure what to make of what you have typed. It's irrelevant in the larger context of discussing state sanctioned killing.

[LynnTheDem]

4. The torture part is ok. It's legal to torture people, according to the "president" of the USA.

The rest is still considered illegal, isn't it?

:sarcasm:

[snooper2]

7. Another fucker

that deserves to die..

I still don't get how people think we should pay for this POS to lay in prison or try to "reform" him.

Humans are animals...there are 310 million of these animals in the US alone....a percentage of these are rabid and need to be put down.

[bitchkitty]

9. Everyone screaming for death -

what nobody realizes is that this man is already dead. He's cold inside.

Lock him up forever. Death is never the answer - and wishing death on him is immoral - because you are supposed to care about life - you're not dead inside. Or are you?

Why would you give someone so undeserving of it, the peace of non-existence?

[noonwitch]

10. Lock him up and let the victim choose his cellmate

Give her the choice of some of the state's most notorius inmates.

[uppityperson]

13. I agree.

If he is killed he is just dead. Lock him up forever. Give him time alone, to be with himself. Death is too good and letting another prisoner do revenge on him puts too much on another prisoner. Just lock him up, alone.

[riverdeep]

12. There are two aspects to consider here:

One, what causes people like this, and two, what to do about it once they're formed. Prevention and cure. Humans aren't known for their prevention outlook, especially when it comes to complex societal problems.

On the first issue, I'm more or less classically liberal in my insights and response. While the info is still coming in, the general consensus is it's a combination of genetic susceptibility and bad circumstances. These circumstances don't necessarily have to be poverty and the like, but can be emotional abuse. There are also true sociopaths, for whom the ability to be human was denied at formation and will never appear. For this first group, creating caring environments that show value to children should make a difference in their paths. Reducing the celebration for craven violence in the culture at large should also help. For the second group, there is little you can do. Sociopaths can only be contained, at best.

On what to do with them once they're formed, my response is like a conservative: destroy them.

[np33]

15. It's interesting that

the same day the Supreme Court strikes down executions for non-murder cases we hear the details of this incredibly heinous crime. We have some seriously fucked up people in this world.