Mortal Danger

bringing murder charges against Clarence Williams, close enough that he felt safe in letting Lynne Carlson know that. He called and updated her.
    To be absolutely, totally armed with DNA evidence, Ciesynski sent Sara Beth’s panties to a private lab, Forensic Sciences Associates. Technicians there confirmed the match. There was a tiny area of spermatozoa on the back of the panties. It had emerged from a male with a specific analysis of the amelogenin gene.
    “The calculated genotype frequencies,” the report read in a language few understand, “indicate that it is unlikely that more than one human has ever possessed this genotype array.”
    The buccal (cheek) swab that Ciesynski had taken from Clarence Williams was identical in genotype array.
    There were possibly other witnesses who would tie up the case. So many of those involved in 1978 had passed away. Dr. Eisele, the original forensic pathologist who had done the autopsy on Sara Beth, had died, along with several homicide detectives. But Mike Ciesynski had found Minda Craig, Sara Beth’s best friend, who remembered that Saturday night in 1978 as if it were yesterday. Her sadness over the loss of her friend had never faded, and she said she would be glad to testify.
    He didn’t expect, however, to find Lorraine Olsen, the neighbor who heard Sara Beth scream that night. She’d been past middle age then.
    But Lorraine Olsen was alive and in a wheelchair, being cared for by her son who had found Sara Beth’s shoes and purse, and she was over eighty.
    “But I think she can testify,” her son assured Ciesynski. “I think she will want to do that.”
     
    During the summer of 2007, Clarence Williams was one of four hundred convicts who’d been moved to the Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton, Minnesota, because of overpopulation in correctional facilities in Washington.
    Mike Ciesynski flew to Minnesota on October 23. Prison guards at the facility led him to an empty mess hall, a huge room. Other than some men cleaning the serving counter forty feet away, and a guard at the door, he was alone with Clarence Williams.
    He found Clarence Williams disgruntled because he believed that the cold case detective had orchestrated the Minnesota transfer. He had not. It would have been more convenient for the investigation to have had Williams remain in Monroe, only thirty miles from Seattle Police headquarters.
    Read his rights once more, Williams signed it and asked wearily, “What now?”
    “You’re going to be transferred back to the King County Jail in Seattle.”
    “I never asked to come here in the first place.” Williams didn’t ask why he was being sent back. He undoubtedly knew why.
    Ciesynski outlined the similar stabbing pattern—and number of wounds—found on both Laura Baylis and Sara Beth Lundquist.
    Williams sighed and shrugged, his usual reaction. “I’ve got nothing to say about that. I didn’t stab that other girl.”
    All unconsciously, he had admitted for the very first time to stabbing Laura Baylis.
    It was obvious, though, that he wouldn’t admit to anything else. Ciesynski stood up and said, “See you in Seattle.”
     
    Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kristin Richardson, who heads the Cold Case Division of the King County Prosecutor’s Office, oversaw filing charges against Clarence Williams, now sixty-two. He was charged with rape, kidnapping, and first-degree murder in Sara Beth’s death. He was extradited from Minnesota to face the charges in Seattle, and he was arraigned on November 20, 2007.
    His court-appointed attorney was taken off guard when Williams attempted to take an Alford plea without consulting him. The Alford meant that Williams would tell the judge that he would not admit guilt, but that he believed he would be found guilty if he went to trial.
    His attorney hastily intervened and the judge agreed to accept “no plea” until there was agreement between Williams and his lawyer.
    He formally entered an Alford plea on December 3.
    Sara Beth’s family watched from the gallery as the tall, muscled man who had killed her stood within feet of them. They felt some relief to know that he had been locked behind bars during all the years they wondered who he was. At least he hadn’t killed anyone else after Laura Baylis’s murder. Nor would he ever be free to kill again.
    Six days before Christmas 2007, those who loved SaraBeth told Clarence Edward Williams what he had done when he ended the life of a girl he