Child killer Jeremy Williams sentenced to four death sentences for kidnapping, rape and murder of 5-year-old US girl

Kamarie Holland's mother, Kristy Siple, and Jeremy Williams. Photos / Russell County Sheriff's department

WARNING: Graphic content

A man who kidnapped, raped and killed a 5-year-old Georgia girl has been given four death sentences for the crime.

Russell County Circuit Court Judge David Johnson handed down the sentence against Jeremy Williams who murdered, raped and brutalised Kamarie Holland in 2021, news outlets reported.

Kamarie’s mother, Kristy Siple, told police that when she woke up at 5.50am on December 13, 2021, her daughter was gone and the front door of their Columbus, Georgia, home was open, Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor said. The girl’s body was found late that night at an abandoned home in nearby Phenix City, Alabama, where Williams once lived.

Kamarie Holland, 5, was reported missing to Columbus police on December 13, 2021. Her body was found later that day.

A jury found him guilty on four charges of capital murder, among other charges.

Court records show Williams and the child’s mother were later indicted on charges in connection to the girl’s death.

Siple was charged with human trafficking.

According to her arrest warrant, Siple agreed “with another person to pay her for having sexual intercourse and sodomy with her minor child”.

Siple pleaded guilty last month on one charge of human sex trafficking, a court spokesperson said. She faces up to 20 years in prison.

Living in Columbus at the time of the murder, Williams raped and strangled Kamarie after offering her mother US$2500 for the girl to perform oral sex on him, according to testimony given in his trial. Video evidence shown to jurors captured officers finding Kamarie’s body and of him sexually assaulting the girl. Some jurors began to cry as videos of the assault were shown, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported.

After his conviction, Kamarie’s father, Corey Holland snr, urged the judge to order the death penalty for his daughter’s killer.

“His life compares nothing to Kamarie’s,” he told the newspaper.

Several other witnesses talked about the impact the case had had on them and offered their opinion of Williams, WRBL-TV reported.

Williams’ ex-wife called him “soulless”, and a now-23-year-old woman who was 4 when Williams allegedly molested her described him as a “monster”.

Taylor told the Ledger-Enquirer this was one of the hardest cases the sheriff’s office has had to investigate.

“If there’s ever been somebody that’s deserving of the death penalty, it’s Jeremy Williams,” Taylor said after the sentencing. “He’s another type of evil that we in society just don’t need walking around.”

In addition to the four death sentences, Johnson sentenced Williams to life in prison for production of obscene material of a child and human trafficking; 20 years for conspiracy of human trafficking; and 10 years for abuse of a corpse.

Though he now sits on death row at Holman State Prison in Atmore, authorities said Williams’ execution could be decades away. Russell County District Attorney Rick Chancey speculated it would take a while for the sentence to be carried out.

“At its current pace, I’ll die before he does,” Chancey, who is 55, told the television station. “My life expectancy right now is probably shorter than his.”

Chancey said he visited the little girl’s grave recently and said, “There’s no reason that baby should be in the ground.”

“I want to remember her, not this joker,” he said. “Jeremy is not somebody I want to remember in life.”