'To Kill a Mockingbird' comparison falls flat as black man is convicted of white woman's cold case murder

A combative literary reference wasn’t enough to save an Alabama man from 
being convicted of killing a young woman decades ago.

On Tuesday, Mobile County jurors determined that Alvin Ray Allen, 65, 
murdered 19-year-old Sandra Elaine Williams on Sept. 11, 1980. 
Investigators and prosecutors also believe the victim was raped.

The day before, the condemned man’s defense attorney compared him to Tom 
Robinson, the wrongfully accused Black character defended by Atticus Finch 
in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

In the book, considered a classic of modern literature and one of the most 
trenchant observations of race relations in America, Robinson is convicted 
by a racist Alabama jury despite knowing that he is innocent of the crime 
he had been accused of – raping a white woman.

Defense attorney Dennis Knizley acknowledged some reticence to compare 
himself to Finch, according to a courtroom report by Mobile-based Fox 
affiliate WALA. This time, the defense attorney argued, the jury deciding 
the man’s fate was different from the jury in the book.

“You’re going to be fair and just, and you’re going to follow the rules,” 
Knizley said.

The state was none too pleased with that line of argument.

“This is not ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ ladies and gentlemen,” Assistant 
District Attorney Ashley Rich said during her closing arguments. “And 
these are not the times of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ We have DNA. They 
didn’t have DNA in 1980.”

The slain 19-year-old was found on a dead-end street in Mobile’s 
Toulminville neighborhood – miles away from her own apartment.

The prosecutor went on to argue that if law enforcement had simply been 
trying to pin Williams’ murder on a Black man, Allen – who was the white 
woman’s neighbor – would have been quickly arrested in the case. Instead, 
Rich said, Allen wasn’t even a suspect for a decade.

The investigation eventually stalled. The cold case was only reopened in 
recent years after the victim’s family pleaded for investigators to reopen 
the case and re-test evidence for DNA. The state eventually tied Allen to 
the slaying due to fluids discovered on Williams’ jeans

“He forced Sandy to have sex with him at knifepoint, and then he murdered 
her,” the prosecutor said. “Sandy Williams did a horrific, painful 
death…She was stabbed over 15 times.”

The defense argued that Allen and Williams had a consensual sexual 
relationship – albeit one that remained under wraps due to the severely 
racist attitudes of white Alabamians in 1980.

“I can’t have mamma and my family knowing I’m talking to a black man,” 
Knizley said, essaying the deceased woman’s thoughts. “If you talk to him, 
you might find out we have a relationship that’s a little different than 
what you think.”

Racism, often violent and fatal for Black people in the state back then, 
was the reason the defendant remained guarded around law enforcement for 
so long – refusing to submit DNA or fingerprints and dodging investigators 
at a time he knew they wanted to speak with him about the case. When Allen 
was finally arrested for the murder on Sept. 10, 2019, he refused to leave 
his residence and was only taken into custody after a SWAT team broke down 
his door.

Knizley referenced an incident where Mobile Police Department members put 
a noose around a Black man’s neck in the late 1970s in order to exact a 
confession. In 1981, the defense attorney said, the Ku Klux Klan lynched a 
Black teenager in Mobile.

“These were some of the real-life experiences Black people went through,” 
the defense attorney told jurors.

But reminding jurors about the viciousness and prejudices of racial hatred 
wasn’t enough to save his client.

The jury deliberated just 30 minutes before returning their guilty 
verdict.

This was the second time Allen was tried for Williams’ murder. An initial 
trial in 2019 ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a unanimous 
verdict.

“It’s been a long time coming and she needs to rest,” Williams’ sister, 
Judy Barfield, said in comments to local CBS affiliate WKRG in 2017. 
“Those beautiful green eyes of hers, that pretty smile and that brown 
hair. It’s time for her to rest.”

https://lawandcrime.com/crime/to-kill-a-mockingbird-comparison-falls-flat-
as-black-man-is-convicted-of-white-womans-cold-case-murder/