Little Rock woman pleads guilty to fatally stabbing boyfriend

Paradise Williams
Paradise Williams

A 30-year-old Little Rock woman with a history of knife violence accepted a 25-year prison sentence on Monday for fatally stabbing her boyfriend almost two years ago.

Paradise Deanna Williams pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for killing Jerry Moore Jr. three days after Thanksgiving 2015, court filings show. She'll have to serve more than 17 years of her sentence before she can apply for parole.

On the day of Moore's death, Little Rock police responded to a call about a stabbing and found the 33-year-old unconscious and bleeding heavily on the blood-spattered front porch of a South Battery Street boarding house, just off 14th Street, where Williams was a tenant. The married father of two had been stabbed twice in the neck.

When officers arrived, they also found another resident, Tanaica Brown, 41, trying to stop the bleeding, at the advice of 911 dispatchers. She told police she had just driven up to the house and saw Moore, holding his throat, collapse on the porch.

A visitor to the home, 46-year-old John Vines, had called police after seeing Williams strike Moore in the throat during an argument between the pair in the doorway of the residence. Vines said Williams then ran back inside and out the back door. Williams was arrested about 14 hours later.

[HOMICIDE MAP: Interactive map of Little Rock’s 2015 killings]

When she killed Moore, Williams had been on probation for almost three years for threatening a neighbor with knives in 2010. Three weeks before the slaying, Williams' probation had been extended by five years for a July 2015 incident in which she had threatened another acquaintance with a knife. Both times, conditions of her probation included drug treatment and anger management.

Williams first pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in February 2013 in exchange for three years on probation for threatening neighbor Reba Benson with a pair of kitchen knives during a Sept. 17, 2010, argument on the front yard of their duplex home at 1501 Charles Bussey Ave.

According to court files, police said Williams climbed out of a window to get at Benson, whom Williams suspected of flirting with her boyfriend. Benson, 55, said Williams slashed at her with the knives.

Williams denied attacking the other woman, but admitted she had been carrying the knives, which police found in a trash can. Williams also said she'd been smoking crack cocaine that morning.

She was arrested again over accusations of threatening someone with a knife on July 24, 2015, after a longtime friend told police she slashed one of his tires and threatened to stab him after he told her he wouldn't give her a ride to the store.

According to police reports, John Clay said he'd agreed to give Williams, a longtime neighbor, a ride to the EZ Mart at 12th and Woodrow streets. At the store, Williams got into an argument with the clerk, Clay said, adding that he started blowing his horn trying to get her to leave.

The clerk, Mohammad Farooq, told police Williams couldn't make up her mind whether to buy cookies or chips, then lost her patience with him and started cursing and threatening him. Farooq said Williams had regularly caused trouble at the store and had been told to stay away before.

When she finally got into Clay's pickup, he drove her away, he said. But when she asked Clay to take her somewhere else, he told her he was going home to eat breakfast and told her to get out of the truck.

Clay told police he pulled over, walked around to the passenger-side door and told her to get out. Williams produced a knife and threatened him with it, Clay said. She then got out of the truck and punctured one of his tires with the blade before running away.

She subsequently pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in November 2015.

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Metro on 11/08/2017

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