A Lebanon County jury has for a second time convicted Eddie Lee Williams of murdering Marcus Ortiz and permanently injuring Keith Crawford in what prosecutors portrayed as a dispute over the breakup of a drug dealing partnership.
Williams, first convicted of the 2014 crimes by a Lebanon County jury 10 years ago, was awarded a new trial after federal appeals courts ruled that the judge at his first trial improperly admitted the confession of his absent co-defendant. Williams was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder when his conviction was vacated.
Williams’ second trial began Monday, June 9, and ran through the week. After three hours of deliberations starting on Friday afternoon, June 13, the jury announced its verdict at about 6:45 p.m.
Williams did not testify in his own defense.
Williams was convicted of all 14 offenses presented to the jury, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, robbery, and multiple lesser offenses including fleeing from police and firearms charges.
Williams is once again looking at life in prison. Lebanon County President Judge John C. Tylwalk set sentencing for Wednesday, Aug. 13.
Speaking outside the courtroom after the verdict was announced, defense attorney Jonathan Crisp was uncertain whether the latest verdict would be appealed. He added that he did not believe that Crawford, who was the prosecution’s main witness, was capable of accurately recalling details of the shootings, which occurred on the morning of March 10, 2014.
Crawford, who was shot through the head and unexpectedly survived, showed stroke-like symptoms when he testified, including difficulty walking and speaking. At one point he incorrectly claimed to have been shot in the rib cage, contrary to medical evidence presented by the prosecution.
Lebanon County District Attorney Pier Hess Graf, who was the lead trial prosecutor, said that preparing an old case for retrial presented unusual challenges.
“This was the most labor-intensive retrial,” she said afterwards. Records from the first trial, consisted of “six paper boxes and I can’t even tell you how many terabytes of electronic information. You then have to re-learn everything from trial one … and you then have to locate everyone from trial one.”
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