Slaying, Scribbling, Scattering

Stanley “Tookie” Williams was a founder of the Crips gang. In 1979, he murdered Albert Owens, a young 7-11 clerk, during a Los Angeles-area robbery that netted $210. Later that year he killed Yen-Yi Yang, Tsai-Shai Lin, and Yee-Chen Lin — elderly parents and their middle-aged daughter, Taiwanese immigrants who managed a motel; he broke down the door to their office and shot them multiple times. During his trial, he threatened jurors. Convicted in 1981 and sentenced to death, Williams was then implicated in attacks on guards and inmates and in escape plots at San Quentin before being executed last year. While in prison, Williams gained more fame than most of his Death Row neighbors by authoring several books, mainly for children, including Gangs and Self-Esteem, Gangs and Violence, Gangs and Wanting to Belong, Life in Prison and Blue Rage, Black Redemption. His collaborator on these books was Barbara Becnel, who also worked as Williams’ publicist, contacting the media regularly to keep Williams’ name in the news. This week, a judge dismissed a claim filed by the killer’s son protesting Williams’ will — which leaves everything to Becnel.

Travon Williams, 33, had asked “that the convicted gang leader's will ... be ruled invalid because the beneficiary had a hand in its creation,” according to Insidebayarea.com. “Judge James Ritchie ruled in favor of Barbara Becnel, 56.... Becnel argued the senior Williams had worked with several attorneys in drafting the will and signed it freely.... She argued [that] Williams chose to leave nothing to his son or any other living relative. He wanted Petitioner Becnel to receive all his tangible property, intangible property and intangible intellectual property.” The value of said assets remains unspecified. Williams’ other son, Stanley "Little Tookie" Williams, Jr., is also a murderer.

Becnel, who ran for the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nominee in 2006 but later joined the Greens, “first got in touch with Williams in the fall of 1992, when she was writing a book about the history of the Crips and Bloods youth gangs,” reports Insidebayarea.com. “Becnel also was the person most responsible for the television movie Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story, starring Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx. She worked with Williams during the clemency process and was able to gain support from a wide range of celebrities.” Becnel scattered Williams’ ashes in a South African lake.

Williams’ victims remain dead.