Woman plans guilty plea in triple Texas murders, prosecutor says

By Kevin Murphy (Reuters) - A woman charged with helping her husband kill a Texas district attorney, his wife and an assistant district attorney has reached a tentative agreement to plead guilty to murder, the special prosecutor in the case said on Sunday. Kim Williams is charged with three counts of capital murder in the 2013 shooting deaths of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, his wife, Cynthia McLelland, and Mark Hasse, an assistant district attorney. A jury earlier this month convicted her husband, Eric Williams, of killing Cynthia McLelland and sentenced him to death. He is also charged with murdering the two prosecutors. Eric Williams, 47, was a former justice of the peace in Kaufman County, about 30 minutes southeast of Dallas, and committed the murders in revenge for being prosecuted on theft charges, according to testimony presented at his trial. Kim Williams testified against her estranged husband during the penalty phase of the trial, detailing how he planned to carry out the murders. She told jurors she was guilty of the murders because she accompanied her husband but that he pulled the trigger. Bill Wirskye, the lead special prosecutor in the case, said on Sunday that Kim Williams is scheduled to enter a guilty plea to murder at 9 a.m. on Tuesday in Kaufman County. "We've reached a tentative agreement between the parties,” Wirskye said. He would not say whether her plea would apply to all three murders or just one. Paul Johnson, attorney for Kim Williams, did not immediately return a call for comment on Sunday. Hasse was fatally shot outside the Kaufman County Courthouse on Jan. 31, 2013. The McLellands were killed in their home on March 30, 2013. (Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Missouri; Editing by Jonathan Allen and Eric Walsh)