A Philly hit man who took part in seven murders was sentenced to at least 40 years in prison

One of the most prolific contract killers in recent Philadelphia history was ordered Wednesday to spend decades in prison for taking part in seven murders in 13 months — crimes authorities say he committed for cash while sometimes working with associates of a drug kingpin.

Moments after Common Pleas Court Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi imposed the sentence of 40 to 80 years for Steven Williams, spectators in the packed courtroom gallery erupted in anger.

“Murderer!” some screamed as Williams was escorted to a holding cell, while others cried and yelled that he should have faced the death penalty.

The outbursts capped an emotional, hours-long hearing at which relatives of Williams’ seven victims spoke of the pain they have felt since his killing spree, which began in 2018.

DeFino-Nastasi, a veteran homicide judge, said she had never seen as many people — more than 50 — packed into one hearing.

“The pain in this room is palpable. You can feel it,” the judge said.

“I’m astounded by the number of people whose lives you’ve shattered,” she told Williams. “This is permanent. This is forever. This is disastrous.”

Williams, 30 — who is also known as “White Boy” — pleaded guilty last year to taking part in four murders, which already made him a uniquely violent figure in recent city history.

But in January, prosecutors charged him with three more homicides, and last month he pleaded guilty to those crimes, too.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, which handled all seven cases, agreed to allow Williams to plead guilty to third-degree murder or lesser crimes and declined to seek the otherwise mandatory life sentence for people who are twice convicted of that offense.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Tracie Gaydos did not say why, but in court Wednesday she called Williams’ crimes “heinous acts of violence” and asked the judge to impose a minimum sentence of 50 years.

Without explaining her reasoning, DeFino-Nastasi ordered Williams instead be imprisoned for at least 40 years.

“I thought that was too lenient,” Stanley Crawford, the father of one of the victims who has closely followed the prosecution of Williams, said afterward. Others in the gallery were more emotional, leading sheriff deputies, courtroom staff, and even the prosecutor to seek to bring calm to the room after the hearing by separating the victims’ supporters from Williams’ relatives, and later gathering those who were upset and speaking with them as a group.

Prosecutors said Williams took part in seven killings between 2018 and 2019. During that period, Gaydos said, he was effectively making his living as a hit man — accepting thousands of dollars to target and kill men he didn’t know.

Several men were killed while in their cars, Gaydos said Wednesday, another was killed early in the morning outside his sister’s house, and yet another was shot as he sat on his front porch.

Gaydos said that Williams often worked with two other men — both now dead — and that the group sometimes stalked their targets for days in advance of their shootings, looking for opportunities to strike. After the crimes, she said, Williams would boast in text messages and on social media, writing after one killing that he had a “mini graveyard” of his own.

The victims, Gaydos said, “were caught with the guard down. All literally had nowhere to go.”

Authorities have remained tight-lipped about some aspects of the case — including who may have hired Williams or why they paid him to kill people.

Court documents provide some clues. In search warrants filed several years ago, police said one of Williams’ coconspirators was a hit man with ties to I-Dean Fulton.

Fulton, also known as Hammer, was a major city drug trafficker before he was killed at his Manayunk home in 2020, according to authorities.

Police in court documents called Fulton “a major distributor of illegal narcotics and the head of a well-organized criminal enterprise.” And they said Fulton was known to have ordered the killing of people he believed were cooperating with authorities or otherwise threatening his drug empire.

Gaydos did not mention Fulton during Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, and she declined to comment afterward on his potential connections to Williams.

But a variety of crimes that authorities believe are connected to Fulton’s organization and its rivals, including homicides, remain under investigation.

Williams, for his part, declined to speak during Wednesday’s hearing. And he declined an interview request from The Inquirer while in jail awaiting his sentence.

In December — days before he entered his first guilty plea — a post was published on his Instagram account saying: “100 years, no tears! However this s— go, chin up chest out.”

Williams’ streak of violence, authorities said, targeted victims who had no obvious links to one another: Leslie Carroll, William Crawford, Richard Isaac, LeVern Jackson, Kenneth Robinson, Ramon Rosa, and Jermaine Simmons.

At least one of the victims — Jackson — was killed in a case of mistaken identity. In that case, prosecutors said, Williams was the getaway driver, and not the gunman.

In others, investigators found evidence including surveillance video, cell phone records, and witness testimony pointing to Williams as the killer.

About a dozen relatives of the victims testified Wednesday, and many of them cried as they recalled their loved ones. In some cases, witnesses said, they have struggled to explain the deaths to the victims’ children.

“You took my entire heart,” Gloria Walcott, Isaac’s widow, told Williams. “The happiness and joy I was so full of was all gone like that.”

Simmons’ mother, Minnie, said she had to retire early because she could not stop crying on the bus while commuting to work. Williams, she said, “destroyed my everyday life.”

And Samira Crawford, 22, William Crawford’s oldest daughter, said she spent countless hours during her formative years visiting her father’s grave — and the pain has never eased.

“They say it gets better,” she said through tears. “It don’t.”