WASHINGTON - Marlon Williams, 34, Washington, D.C., was sentenced today to a prison term of 40 years on a charge of first-degree felony murder stemming from the 2010 slaying of a man in Southeast Washington, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. announced.
Williams was found guilty by a jury in July 2013, following a trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He was sentenced by the Honorable Russell F. Canan.
According to the evidence at trial, at about 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 13, 2010, the victim, Min Soo Kang, was found on the curb in the 3500 block of Croffut Place SE, with multiple gunshot wounds. Detectives found his wallet and contacted his next of kin, who advised them that Mr. Kang, 37, owned a 2010 Cadillac Escalade equipped with OnStar GPS technology. Detectives requested that OnStar assist in tracking the vehicle. At about 5:30 p.m. on that same date, OnStar located the Escalade in the 5200 block of Ames Street NE, and engaged the remote ignition block, which prevented the ignition from re-starting the vehicle once it had been turned off.
Coincidentally, a short time later, a neighborhood resident returned home to find the disabled Escalade stopped in front of her residence. At about 7 p.m., that woman dialed 911 and alerted the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) about the suspicious behavior of a man who, upon hearing sirens approaching in the area, exited the vehicle, quickly slammed the hood, threw something into her yard, and walked away. However, when those sirens went elsewhere, the same man returned, retrieved what he had thrown into her yard, and re-entered the vehicle, making further attempts to get it started.
Once police located Mr. Kang’s vehicle, they had it towed to the Mobile Crime Lab. Technicians lifted a palm print from the hood of the car and several fingerprints from the interior handles of the driver’s door. In addition, a search of the passenger compartment yielded a receipt for the purchase of two cartons of Newport cigarettes by Mr. Kang, in Virginia, less than three hours prior to his body being found. Three unopened packs of Newport cigarettes with Virginia tax stamps remained in the vehicle. The technicians, upon noticing apparent bullet holes in the driver’s seat, recovered three bullets from inside that seat.
Earlier, during the day of Sept.13, 2010, upon performing an autopsy on Mr. Kang, a medical examiner identified three gunshot wounds to the chest with exit wounds from his back. In addition, Mr. Kang suffered a gunshot wound to the face, which exited the left ear, another gunshot wound to the left index finger, exiting the palm of Mr. Kang’s hand, and one gunshot wound perforating his right forearm.
Detectives used the palm-print, lifted from the hood of the Escalade, and identified by the fingerprint examiner, to match that of the defendant, and the description given by the 911 caller, which also matched that of the defendant, to obtain a warrant for a search of Williams’s home. There they found the murder weapon beneath his bed. In that same bedroom, police recovered one empty pack of Newport cigarettes bearing a Virginia tax stamp.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen praised the work of the MPD detectives, officers, crime scene technicians, and forensic specialists who worked on the case. He also expressed appreciation for the assistance of OnStar. In addition, he praised those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Paralegal Specialist Alesha Matthews Yette, Litigation Technology Specialists Kimberly Smith, Leif Hickling, and Joshua Ellen, and Interns Arielle Barnett and Malini Malhotra.
Finally, he commended the efforts of Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Wheeler, who secured the indictment in the case and handled the prosecution at trial.
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Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
