Megan Williams case

rdf:langString Megan Williams case

rdf:langString The Megan Williams case involves a 20-year-old African American woman from West Virginia, who was kidnapped, raped and tortured by six people, including several members of one family in a racist attack. Among other things, the suspects were charged with stabbing Williams, dousing her with hot water, and forcing her to eat rat, dog, and human feces. In addition, the suspects were alleged to have hurled racial slurs at her while doing so. The torture and sexual assault was said to have been carried out for about a week. At the time of Williams' removal from the residence, widely circulated photos of Williams in the hospital showed stab wounds on her legs and her hair seemingly pulled from its roots. Civil rights leaders, community activists and others asserted that the racial motive made the incident subject to prosecution under hate crimes statutes. Authorities did not initially file hate crime charges in the attack, but prosecutors did not rule out such a move down the road. When pressed on the possibility of such charges, authorities said that they were focused on the charges with the toughest penalties, noting that the maximum sentence for a hate crime was just 10 years. One defendant was convicted of a hate crime in the incident. In October 2009, Williams recanted many of the accusations, including the accusation that the attack was racially motivated, against five of the defendants. However, she maintained that she was held against her will, sexually and physically abused, accusing Bobby Ray Brewster, whom Williams knew and had visited on occasion before the incident, of abuse. She was not charged with filing false charges.