Child’s play was interrupted by gunplay nearly four years ago when armed robbers stormed a Memorial Day cookout at a Baton Rouge swimming pool. A Baker teen and a young man planning to join the U.S. Air Force were gunned down in the hail of bullets, and a 21-month-old girl died after being struck by a stray bullet as she played in the water.
A jury deliberated about 75 minutes Friday afternoon before finding David Gerrell Williams, 23, guilty of leading the deadly ambush that turned holiday festivities at the Fairway View Apartments into a tragedy that rocked the Baton Rouge community.
The guilty verdicts capped a weeklong trial inside the 19th Judicial District Courthouse. Williams, 23, was convicted of three counts of second-degree murder in the May 31, 2021, slayings of 16-year-old Dewayne “D.J.” Craig Dunn Jr.; the teen’s best friend, Reginald Thomas Jr., 20; and Ja’Tyri Unique Brown, a toddler caught in the crossfire.
After the jury rendered its decision, Williams insisted on waiving delays in his state-mandated fate and urged the presiding trial judge to sentence him immediately. District Judge Fred Crifasi obliged and imposed mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for each of the counts of murder during a short post-trial sentencing hearing inside the courtroom.
“I take no pleasure in pronouncing this sentence. It’s just sad,” Crifasi said moments before handing the life prison stints. “Sad mainly for the victims’ families that we’re here. Sad for you and your circumstances now. But mostly for our community that has to continue to endure this nonsense. And that’s exactly what it was; just awful.”
Afterward, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore called the shooting “unfathomable” as he stood outside the courtside beside prosecutors that argued the state’s case and members of the three victims’ families.
“This heinous crime set the entire parish of East Baton Rouge off at a time when things were really bad,” he said. “This made it worse. And I really think things like today can bring us back together.”
Prosecutors convinced jurors that Williams and his half-brother, Ladarius Coleman, who was 15 at the time, shot up a crowded pool party at the apartment complex in the 2200 block of College Drive. Coleman was found guilty last year of three counts of murder and sentenced to three life sentences.
They argued the two brothers targeted Dunn and Thomas to rob them of their assault rifles. Williams shot Dunn in the temple, nose and neck, and Coleman shot Thomas four times in the back, including one wound to the back of the head. Both men died at the scene.
An errant bullet ripped through Ja’Tyri Brown’s torso, and she died at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center after her parents pulled her out of the pool and rushed her to the children’s hospital.
“No matter how much time he gets, it will never bring my child back,” Ja’Tyri’s mother, Tatianna Day, said at the sentencing hearing. “I will never forgive or forget. Your soul is required in hell.”
Several eyewitnesses said Williams opened fire on Dunn seconds after he rushed into the pool area and demanded the teen’s high-caliber weapon. Jarcobi Brown, Ja’Tyri’s father, took the stand Thursday and testified he heard Williams tell Dunn “Don’t move” moments before nine gunshots rang out. Multiple witnesses said while Dunn and Thomas were armed, they kept their guns resting on their laps beneath pool towels and never brandished or threatened to use them during the attack. Jarcobi Brown said Dunn was “caught off guard” and only had time to turn his head toward Williams before the defendant shot him multiple times.
But Williams took the stand Friday morning and told jurors those were all lies from the witnesses. He testified that he, his brother and friends weren’t attempting to rob the victims; they simply planned to go swimming in the pool. According to Williams, he and Dunn made eye contact as he walked through the gated entrance and Dunn confronted him asking, “I know y’all not trying to swim here,” as he walked past the teen’s lounging chair.
Williams demonstrated for jurors how he said Dunn began raising his assault rifle toward him and he grabbed the gun by the barrel to push it away. That’s when Williams claimed he opened fire with his 9 mm, shooting Dunn multiple times.
“I was really just trying not to get shot,” he testified.
Yet three men who helped Coleman and Williams storm the pool deck were among the witnesses that said Dunn and Thomas never pointed their ARs at anyone before they were shot. When Assistant District Attorney confronted Williams with the conflicting testimony, he insisted all the eyewitness accounts were false.
“For the most part, they told the truth. But about the rifle, they lied,” Williams said.
Dunn’s mother, Shameka Murray, stormed out of the courtroom in disgust as Williams testified that her son instigated the fatal affair. Afterward, she scoffed at his claims, saying they were entirely untrue.
Following the guilty verdicts, she turned toward Williams, bristling with anger as she gave a victim impact statement just prior to sentencing. Tears streamed down her face as she shook with emotion over the loss of her youngest child.
“David Gerrell Williams, you are a heartless monster,” she told him. “You took my only son. The decision that you made changed my baby’s resting place from home to Winnfield Funeral Home. And your new resting place will be Angola for the rest of your life.”