The Misery Machine - The Case of Jakayla Williams

Starting point is 00:00:00 Tonight a dothen woman is accused of a crime so horrific. Veteran law enforcement officers say it's shocked even them. At around 7.30 a.m. on August 13th, 2023, 18-year-old Jakela Ashanti Williams gave birth to a healthy baby boy at her suburban home located in the 1,100 block of Tate Drive in Dothan, Alabama, just north of the Florida, Georgia line. There was just one problem. Jakela was a recent high school graduate and still lived at home. and her family had no idea that she was even pregnant. That was until 10 days later on Wednesday, August 23rd, when her secret was revealed. Jekala informed her loved ones that she had given birth at the nearby Southeast Health Medical Center, but decided not to keep the baby. Reasonably concerned about the newborn, a family member brought Jekala to the hospital to recover her son.

Starting point is 00:00:54 Upon arrival at the facility, Jekala informed the hospital staff exactly what she had told her family, that she had given birth 10 days earlier at the hospital and had left her son in the care of a red-headed employee. So today I'd done my hair and this was the turnout. Nobody got your back like a female you hurt multiple times that's still here. Well, the hospital staff weren't buying this and contacted law enforcement. I guess Chiquela had no idea that this is not how any of this works. Cameras exist and maternity wings have some of the highest security protocols in the entire hospital. After reviewing the surveillance footage for August 13th, Jakela, of course, was nowhere to be found. That's because she never was there. So where was

Starting point is 00:01:38 her newborn? It's unclear how, but eventually Jakela came clean with the police. Her newborn son wasn't in the care of hospital staff. She threw him away. After giving birth to her baby boy, that to our knowledge she never named, Jekela wrapped him in a mattress protector and stuffed him inside of a duffel bag that was secured with a zipper. She then drove to a nearby apartment complex on the west side of Dothan and tossed the bag contained her newborn into a dumpster. That dumpster was equipped with the trash compactor meant to crush items. The police haven't specifically said if the compactor was turned on while he was in there, but you can guess this is a likely possibility. I should also note that it is believed that her son was alive when she did all of this. But why would an 18-year-old

Starting point is 00:02:25 young woman with her whole life ahead of her do such a thing. Well, Jakela told the police exactly why. She said that she did not want to be a mother at 18 years old, and that having a baby costs too much money. But the cost of child care is just too high. We'll get into the rest of the story in just one minute. Please stay with us for the following ad. It not only supports the show, but it helps us support local charities in our area. Ready to unwind and escape from everyday life, then check out Hayday, where farming life is a rewarding challenge and also a relaxing escape. Can't afford that luxury ranch out in Wyoming? No problem.

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Starting point is 00:03:53 link in the description or by using the QR code on screen. Thanks and see you on the farm. Jakela's admission shocked even the most seasoned of law enforcement officials who became emotional when they spoke with reporters. I've never even heard of something so horrific as this. It shocks the mind, shocks the soul. All of us, you know, it affects them. I can look in some of their eyes and see, you know, how this has affected them.

Starting point is 00:04:21 I mean, how can it not? They're officers say they went to the apartment complex and found the dumpster with a trash compactor attached to it. And after looking through the contents at the Dothan City landfill, they found the remains of the newborn wrapped in a batheas protector inside a zipped-up duffel bag. The boys' remains were sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Montgomery to confirm it was the missing baby. She knew, obviously, that she could take a child newborn to the hospital and drop it off. And there's Alabama law that there's no questions asked policy. They passed this law to prevent things like this, but she chose not to do that. We should address something that has and we'll come up again in our comment section numerous times with regard to this case and other cases we've done in the past.

Starting point is 00:05:08 Several viewers will try to conclude that because Roe v. Wade was overturned that Jekala had no other option but to kill her baby. But Jekala did have another option. For those unaware of what our viewers are referring to, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Alabama passed the Human Life Protection Act. This made terminating pregnancies illegal statewide. This is how we have to refer to it because YouTube doesn't like us saying the A word, but I would hope you know what we're referring to. Current Alabama law states that patients traveling across state lines for procedures can be prosecuted. However, what you might not know is that, Alabama has one of the most liberal safe haven policies in the entire country. On June 1st, 2023, a law was passed that allows the surrender of infants up to 45 days old, instead of the normal three-day limit. The law allows infants to be surrendered at fire stations that operate around the clock with emergency personnel. It also authorizes the use of safe haven baby boxes,

Starting point is 00:06:13 which are secured portals in the exterior walls of the fire stations, where infants can be placed and immediately retrieved by emergency workers inside. As Dothan police chief Will Benny outlined in the news clip and Southeast health officials confirmed, all Jakela needed to do was to drop her baby off at the hospital or in one of these new boxes. We don't bring this up as an effort to be political. This isn't a political channel and it never has been. Rather, our primary focus is always the victim in the case that we are covering. Rather, we are fielding a common concern brought up by viewers after we release our videos.

Starting point is 00:06:52 Kids to Love is a private foundation in Madison, Alabama. They provide a wide range of services to foster children such as education and adoption placements. The organization worked with Representative Donna Givens on the legislation and vowed to provide the first 10 Safe Haven baby boxes in Alabama through an anonymous donor. According to Kids to Love's CEO, Lee Marshall, we wanted to give women another option to safely place their baby somewhere if they decided not to parent. And that's really why we wanted to have the baby box legislation in Alabama. She then added, the way that our current law was written was when someone, probably a mom,

Starting point is 00:07:29 wanted to surrender a child. They had to physically walk into a hospital and hand that baby over to hospital officials. We just felt like that was a deterrent for women to be able to safely, successfully, but also with complete anonymity to be able to do that. So many other states have put the baby box into place and they're having great results. And so we just felt like it was time to give women in Alabama another choice. But now, Jekala is facing something far worse than she perceived teen motherhood to be. She's facing capital homicide charges.

Starting point is 00:08:02 According to Houston County District Attorney Russ Goodman, it's unclear at this juncture whether or not prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty against the 18-year-old. He stated that it's not something that they'd even discussed and that it will be decision that is made down the road. Even if capital punishment is on the table, the DA may simply use the threat of death as a bargaining chip to convince Chiquela to accept a plea of life in prison to hasten the trial. And even given the circumstances of this horrible, horrible crime, they did their jobs and they did it well, and that's why we're standing in front of you today. For those calling for the death penalty to be carried out in this case, Alabama's past statistics

Starting point is 00:08:41 will show that it's far more likely it will happen compared to many other cases we've covered, as Alabama sentences more people to death per capita than any other state according to the Equal Justice Initiative. This may have to do with Alabama allowing death sentences to pass without unanimous jury verdicts, as 80% of people currently on death row in Alabama did not receive unanimous verdicts. Alabama currently has 166 prisoners on death row at the time of this recording, which is fourth most behind California, Florida, and Texas. It should be noted that of the 166 inmates on death row. Only five of them are women. However, all five of those women are on death row for the killing of a child, meaning that Jakela becoming number six is definitely a possibility.

Starting point is 00:09:25 On August 25th, Jakela made her first appearance in a Houston County court via Zoom. District Judge Benjamin Lewis asked the young woman, Jakela, you're being charged with capital murder? She replied with a simple, yes, sir, and appeared to be dazed and confused. The hearing took less than five minutes and revealed no new details. The hearing this morning was held via Zoom with Williams, where a judge read her charge of capital murder for the death of her baby boy. In the courtroom were her attorneys, Clay Wadsworth and Amy Cobb and seven family members watching in support. It should be noted that Jakela's son's exact cause of death has yet to be announced, and an autopsy is planned.

Starting point is 00:10:06 It's unclear whether or not the results of that autopsy could change the young woman's charges. As this case is still developing, we'll keep an eye out for updates as they become available. Now, due to the nature of this case, please be kind to one another in the comments. Jaquela did have other options other than crushing her baby in the garbage while he was still alive. Even if it wasn't the option she wanted, she still didn't have to be a teen mom if she didn't want to be. From the sounds of it, her family was willing to help her out as well. Do you think that Jaquela should receive the death penalty for her act? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below.

The Misery Machine - The Case of Jakayla Williams

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