On February 19, 1998, Willie Arnold Ryman lost his life. Willie’s sister had asked him to check in on her daughters, who were home alone, after she couldn’t reach them from her work phone. When he arrived, he found Elroy Chester there.
Elroy had secretly followed Willie’s teenage niece to the house. He cut the phone lines, walked in with a gun and said “I bet you wish you’d locked the door, don’t you?” He bound her with tape, and then when her younger sister came home from a date, he did the same to her. Elroy raped and sodomized the girls before their uncle arrived. When Willie walked into the home, Elroy shot him in the chest and fled.
During his trial for Willie’s murder and many other crimes, Elroy blamed his actions on his “hate for white people” and said that if he hadn’t been caught, he would “still be out there shooting white folks.”
