Inset: Sharon Getman and Darryl Getman (Mount Dora Police Department). Background: Vickie Williams during her murder trial in Florida (WESH).
A Florida jury on Tuesday found Vickie Williams guilty of killing an elderly couple inside their retirement-community home on New Year’s Eve before taking their vehicle and driving to Georgia.
The same jury will now decide whether Williams, 53, should spend the rest of her life in prison or be sentenced to death for the murders of 83-year-old Darryl Getman and his 80-year-old wife, Sharon. Williams was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and motor vehicle theft.
The Getmans were discovered stabbed to death on Jan. 1, 2023, at their home in the 300 block of Lake Margaret Circle in Mount Dora, a city northwest of Orlando.
Defense lawyers argued that Williams suffered from mental illness and therefore could not be held legally responsible for the killings.
Prosecutors acknowledged Williams had mental health problems but maintained that she understood the difference between right and wrong. They argued that her motive was to take the Getmans’ car and use it to travel to her hometown of Savannah, Georgia.
“She went to the Getmans’ house, stabbed them over and over, cleaned up, got keys, went to Savannah,” prosecutors said, according to a courtroom report by local NBC affiliate WESH.
After arriving in Savannah, Williams allegedly appeared upbeat and boasted about the vehicle when she visited a friend’s apartment.
“She busted out laughing,” friend Fuller Blue testified, according to WESH. “She said everything was OK. She bought her a new car.”
The disturbing condition of the crime scene emerged in a probable cause affidavit filed after Williams’ arrest.
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Police were called to the Lakeside at Waterman Village Retirement Community after receiving two separate 911 reports that two people had been killed.
Investigators said Sharon Getman was found in the home’s entryway surrounded by “a large amount of blood.” She had suffered severe head injuries.
White towels lay around her body, appearing to investigators as though someone had tried to provide aid or clean the scene after she sustained her fatal wounds, authorities said.
Police also reported “a large amount of blood from her abdomen which ran out and pooled behind her in the entryway.”
Darryl Getman had “severe head and facial trauma,” according to police. He was found on the floor with a large, yellow-handled butcher knife still embedded “up to the hilt in his abdomen.” A second detective described another large butcher knife in plain view, saying it had been “plunged” into Getman’s stomach with roughly an inch of the blade still visible.
Bloody footprints led investigators through the house and toward the garage. The Getmans’ car, however, was gone.
Authorities used GPS data from Sharon Getman’s phone to trace the vehicle to a parking lot at a Georgia train station, where Williams was taken into custody.
The penalty phase of the trial is scheduled to begin Thursday.
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report
The post Woman who ‘busted out laughing’ after repeatedly stabbing couple in their 80s and then stealing their car faces the ultimate punishment after conviction first appeared on Law & Crime.