Appellate court rejects attempt to use evidence in unrelated shootings in Tulsa double-murder case (2024)

A state appellate court has rejected the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office request to use evidence of a man’s alleged other crimes during his double capital-murder trial.

In so doing, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, in a 4-1 ruling Thursday, upheld a lower court ruling that denied the state’s bid to introduce evidence in three unrelated shootings during Ondriel Layson Smith’s pending double capital-murder trial.

Prosecutors allege that Smith, 40, fatally shot brothers Keith Williams and Glynn Williams on Sept. 5, 2018, in a parking lot outside a dialysis clinic in the 5600 block of East Skelly Drive.

“Considering the highly prejudicial nature of the other crimes evidence at issue in this case, our finding that this evidence was not necessary to support the State’s burden of proof,” the ruling states. As for “the differences in the crimes themselves, we cannot say the trial court abused its discretion in excluding this evidence.”

The Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office had sought to introduce evidence implicating Smith in the shootings of three people between April 2018 and Sept. 11, 2018, during Smith’s double capital-murder trial.

But the appellate court agreed with the trial court that the evidence of other crimes was not necessary to prove the identity of the perpetrator in the Williams murders because prosecutors still had an independent witness to the fatal shootings and the ballistics match ties Smith to the gun found when he was arrested to cartridge casings found at the murder scene.

“While we respect this decision, we are disappointed with it,” Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said in an emailed statement.

“It will certainly add an extra challenge to our case; however, it will not stop us from trying Mr. Smith for his alleged crimes. We look forward to getting the opportunity to do so.”

The Williams brothers, who ran a cleaning company, went to the dialysis center after an employee called them about a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot.

A woman who was with Smith at the time said they were trying to sleep in their vehicle in the parking lot when the two brothers drove up.

Ballistics evidence reportedly connects cartridge casings found at the murder scene to those recovered after test firing a 9 mm Taurus pistol discovered while arresting Smith during a Sept. 17, 2018, traffic stop.

A witness arrested along with Smith, but later released, told investigators that she was with him the night the Williams brothers were killed.

The witness told investigators that she was lying in the backseat of a maroon Chevrolet Equinox in the parking lot during the entire encounter.

While she claimed she didn’t see anything, the witness, who said she had taken Benadryl to help her sleep and used marijuana the same evening, reported hearing Smith arguing with other people in the parking lot before all three men got out of their vehicles, which resulted in shots being fired and another person being heard running away.

The witness said Smith then got back into his vehicle before chasing the second brother while continuing to fire his weapon and then speeding away.

Prosecutors, in their appeal, claimed that evidence from the three other shootings was necessary to prove Smith’s guilt in the murders.

“The proffered evidence of other crimes is necessary for the State to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, (Smith’s) identity as the person who committed the two homicides” outside the dialysis center, prosecutors said in their appeal brief.

“This evidence of the other crimes places the firearm which was used to commit the homicides in (Smith’s) hands both before and after the homicides,” prosecutors wrote.

Smith was charged with shooting with intent to kill in an April 22, 2018, nonfatal shooting.

Prosecutors dismissed those charges Jan. 31, 2019, “pending further investigation,” according to an online court docket.

Smith still faces two counts of shooting with intent to kill, one count of assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of possession of a firearm while a felon in connection with a Sept. 11, 2018, double-shooting.

OCCA Judge Gary Lumpkin cast the sole vote against the ruling.

Lumpkin said the request was necessary to confirm Smith’s identify as the shooter in the homicides and to counter the defense that Smith’s girlfriend killed the two men.

Smith has been in state custody since his arrest.

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