‘Fathers don’t do this,’ Wichita mom tells court before dad who killed baby is sentenced

Katie Clark sobbed. Her infant son would never roll over. Never raise his head on his own. Never play baseball or go to prom.

He would never meet other milestones most parents eagerly await, either, such as building a snowman, riding a bike, healing from his first heartbreak or saying “I love you” to his mom.

At just 64 days old, Marrell Williams was killed by his father — a victim of child abuse while his mother was at work.

Like her brother, Marrell’s twin sister also endured assaults for perhaps weeks at their father’s hand, including a broken leg that authorities think was likely caused by a forceful bend or pull, police have said.

She survived and is 2 years old now.

But Marrell wasn’t so lucky.

In the most violent assault Marrell suffered, on Jan. 10, 2020, Marlin Williams Jr. squeezed the baby boy’s head so hard between his arm and chest that it displaced and fractured the infant’s skull and caused a brain bleed.

Williams then walked away to play an XBox game, according to court documents. The 405-pound, 6-foot-2 father didn’t check on the tiny baby for 10 or 20 minutes.

A friend eventually told him to call 911, the documents say.

Williams later told police he was “angry and frustrated” that Marrell and his other three young children were crying that day, court documents say.

By the time doctors saw him, Marrell was irreversibly “broken from his head to his toe,” Clark told the Sedgwick County District Court judge, Bruce Brown, who on Thursday eventually sent Williams to prison for a little more than 26 years.

The baby died six days after that final assault, as Clark watched over him at the hospital.

“Nothing on him was not hurt,” she said in court. “I watched him for a week before I had to make the decision to do what I did to take him off (of life support). And that lives with me every day. He didn’t get a choice on how he lived his life.”

She added: “Fathers don’t do this.”

Williams was “supposed to love him like I did.”

“I don’t really think that he should see outside ever again. That was our son. And he’s now in a grave,” she said.

Williams, who pleaded guilty in January to one count of second-degree murder in Marrell’s killing and three counts of aggravated battery for abusing his infant twins, sat motionless while Clark spoke during his sentencing hearing. His lawyer, who told the judge the 25-year-old took “full responsibility” for the death and abuse but claimed a traumatic upbringing and mental health issues influenced Williams’ actions, was at his side.

When it was his turn to address the court, Williams apologized and conceded that he had let Clark and his children down.

But, he said, “I am not a monster. I am a great person. My heart is as big as this jail.”

“I just want everybody to forgive me for what I did.”

The comments drew more heavy sobbing from Clark, who hunched over and heaved silently from the courtroom gallery, her face buried in her hands as Williams addressed the judge.

Clark “lost part of her soul” when Marrell died, a great-aunt of the baby’s told the judge.

“He was a beautiful addition to our family that was taken way too soon,” Candy Rosch said.

“Marrell was absolutely helpless to his father’s wrath. . . . I will never believe that 26 years is enough.”

In the end, Sedgwick County Assistant District Attorney Kelsey Floyd urged Brown to follow a recommendation from the state in the plea agreement that called for a 316-month prison sentence, saying the “very, very young children” who were hurt by Williams “were clearly particularly vulnerable.”

Williams’ public defender, Victoria Eck, pushed for a shorter term, 289 months — or just more than 24 years.

Williams “lost a son, too” and “knows that’s his fault,” but the death wasn’t intentional, she said.

“If he could do it all over, of course he would. ... I ask the court to consider that Mr. Williams did a horrible thing. But he is not a horrible person,” Eck said.

Brown ultimately sided with prosecutors and ordered the 316-month prison term, saying the infants’ ages and complete dependence on their father were “substantial and compelling reasons” to depart from the state’s sentencing guidelines.