ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – An Orange County grand jury on Thursday indicted Ralph Hensel on a charge of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Ja’Keem Williams, records show.
Williams, 32, was shot and killed while riding an ATV in Winter Garden last month.
According to Hensel’s arrest affidavit, witnesses say the 57-year-old walked from the Bay Pointe Apartments leasing office area toward Williams and shouted at him before two shots were heard. This occurred after a leasing office manager had reported that someone was riding an ATV back and forth nearby, the affidavit states, adding Hensel then walked back toward the office allegedly saying, “I killed him.”
“Investigators arrived on the scene and determined that there was a disturbance in reference to an ongoing issue with subjects riding motorcycles in the apartment complex, and a subject had fired a gun at the motorcyclist,” Winter Garden police said in a statement.
During a news conference about a week later at attorney Ben Crump’s office along S. Orange Avenue, Williams was described by family and friends as a working father of three, a person who loved to laugh and have fun, and his mother’s “baby” alongside his three other siblings.
“My son was so happy. He was the jokester (...) you know, he goofy, our family know that, and literally I see him on the 19th and we was talking,” said Keisha Rolle-McNeal, Williams’ mother. “My son. I should not be burying my son. I shouldn’t have to be here in this place right now, talking to you, and burying my son, but I declare justice for Ja’Keem DeShun Williams, I want justice for my baby because it should not be this way.”
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Crump claimed that Hensel, whom he described as a maintenance man for the apartment complex, had gained a reputation for regularly threatening people nearby. Attorney Natalie Jackson said her team would investigate whether the shooting could be considered a hate crime.
It was ordered Thursday that Hensel be held without bond, records show.
