A condemned Alabama inmate who raped and murdered a five-year-old girl sought to have his execution date brought forward because he wanted to escape brutal prison conditions, according to the sheriff involved in the investigation.
Jeremy Tremaine Williams, 42, was put to death by lethal injection on Thursday for the December 2021 killing of Kamarie Holland.
Authorities said Williams assaulted and strangled Kamarie after offering her mother $2,500 in exchange for the child being made to perform a sex act. Investigators also said he recorded the attack and kept the girl’s body so he could continue abusing her.
Kamarie’s unclothed body was later discovered at Williams’ duplex in Phenix City, Alabama, hidden underneath a car tarp.
In his final moments, Williams maintained that he had received forgiveness for the crime.
‘I want to thank God for forgiving me for my sins so I can meet him in peace,’ he said, according to the Associated Press.
Witnesses said Williams moved his head from side to side, then smiled and appeared to either sing or speak before becoming motionless. He was pronounced dead at 6.16pm.
His execution followed a written request asking officials to speed up the process, a decision Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor said was driven by Williams’ fear of violence behind bars.
Jeremy Williams, 42, died by lethal injection on Thursday after he was convicted of raping and murdering five-year-old Kamarie Holland in December 2021
Williams raped and strangled five-year-old Kamarie after allegedly offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform a sex act, prosecutors said
Kamarie’s naked body was discovered in Williams’ basement underneath a car tarp with a rope around her neck
‘He didn’t want to look over his shoulder for 30 years, in my opinion,’ Taylor said.
Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey described the Holland’s final moments as ‘horrific.’
‘That baby didn’t die in peace,’ said Chancey at a news conference, referring to Williams’ last words.
Governor Kay Ivey said in a statement after the execution that the nature of Williams’ crimes is the reason they have the death penalty.
The girl’s mother is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking.
Williams was also a suspect in the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska, but charges were not filed until 2022.
It was Alabama’s first execution of 2026 and coincided with two others in the US, marking the first triple execution in 16 years.
In Tennessee, 66-year-old Byron Black Hines died by lethal injection for the 1985 murder of 54-year-old motel maid Catherine Jean Jenkins.
Williams was also a suspect in the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska, but charges were not filed until 2022
Kamarie’s own mother is also behind bars, serving a 20-year sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking
Hines checked into the motel in Kingston Springs and brutally raped, robbed and stabbed Jenkins to death while she was cleaning a room.
Her body was found wrapped in a bedsheet in one of the motel rooms with knife wounds, while her car keys and wallet had been stolen.
He eventually surrendered to police and was sentenced to death in 1986.
Hines initially said he had no final words before requesting: ‘Tell my son hello,’ according to AP.
He was injected and, after a few minutes, Hines asked his spiritual adviser, ‘How long do I have?’ before witnesses heard groans and heavy breathing.
He was pronounced dead at 10.43am.
His son and Jenkins’ family both watched him be executed, as per the outlet.
‘I hope he felt severe pain because what he did to my mother is nothing compared to what he may have just gone through,’ Dennis Jenkins said.
In Oklahoma, 70-year-old Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was executed at the state penitentiary in McAlester for murdering his girlfriend at their Oklahoma City home in 2003.
Anthony Darrell Hines, 66, was executed hours before Williams in Tennessee for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins, a motel maid he stabbed to death
In Oklahoma, 70-year-old Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was set to face lethal injection for murdering his girlfriend at their Oklahoma City home in 2003
Olimpia Fisher, 43, was planning to leave the relationship when Cuesta-Rodriguez shot her in one eye, then waited eight minutes as she screamed for help before firing the fatal shot into her other eye.
‘He made her suffer because she dared to live beyond his control,’ Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the state’s Pardon and Parole Board last month.
Rodriguez has since said he regrets killing her and said that he didn’t want any clemency or mercy.
He attended his clemency hearing only to apologize to his victim’s daughters.
Reading out a statement in Spanish, he said: ‘I know that nothing I say will be enough to erase your pain, to offer some kind of comfort or get her back.
‘But I do want to tell you that I regret it, and I am truly remorseful from the bottom of my heart. My time has come, and I want to leave in peace. And if I am forgiven someday, well, I will be forgiven. But it’s time for me to pay for what I did.’
In his final moments, he had no last words but turned his head toward two relatives watching and mouthed, ‘I love you,’ according to the outlet. He was declared dead at 10.13am.
Eleven states carried out executions in 2025 in the US, and six states have had executions in 2026.
The last time three executions were held on the same day was January 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death.
Three executions were scheduled on the same day in 2018, but only one went forward after a Texas man was granted a reprieve and prison officials in Alabama had problems with the IV line.
