ALTUS -- Dogged investigative work by the Altus Police Department has led to the arrest of the man police believe stabbed Billy Wilson to death in January at a Main Street motel.
Andrew Williams, 40, of 1809 Huff in Wichita Falls, Texas, was arrested around 2 p.m. Friday at his residence and jailed by Wichita Falls police, who had been notified of a warrant for Williams' arrest issued in Jackson County District Court. He is charged with murder in the first degree.
Wilson, 58, was found dead with multiple stab wounds the morning of Jan. 18 in room 105 of the Budget Inn, 510 1/2 N. Main St., by housekeeper Bina Patel. He had been stabbed 76 times.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed by Altus Police Detective Mike Turner, in the course of the investigation police located and questioned a material witness with "pertinent information" in the case. The female witness told Turner that Wilson was a known drug dealer and that he sold crack cocaine.
The witness said she had, in the past, stayed with Wilson in his hotel room but that she left to stay with Williams in the room next door -- 106.
On Jan. 17, the witness said, she went to retrieve some items from Wilson's room and "exchanged words with him." Later that day, she said, Williams mentioned "going to teach Wilson a lesson" over how he had treated her. She said he placed a large rock in a sock, put it in his black jacket and left the room in the early evening for 15 to 20 minutes. When he came back, she said, Williams was in a daze and he didn't want to talk.
He walked straight to the restroom and returned without his jacket. Someone knocked on the door, and Williams told her that if they were looking for Wilson she needed to tell them that they didn't know where he was.
The witness told Turner that Williams had purchased four knives from Richard Large within days prior to Wilson's murder.
Large, 24, who also lived at the Budget Inn, has been jailed since Feb. 28 following his arrest for eluding a police officer on South Spurgeon. He has been identified as a "person of interest" in the stabbing of Eric French, 31, the night of Feb. 24 at the Dixie Quik Stop, 1001 E. Ridgecrest Road. French was stabbed by two knife wielding men that night -- once in the upper torso near his neck, and in his right side. The subjects arrived on foot, stabbed French and fled.
After Wilson's murder, the witness said, Williams "had a room full of crack cocaine."
Turner met with Williams at the Wichita County Jail, where he was being held on unrelated charges. He denied any involvement in Wilson's murder and denied having any information about it. He did, however, consent to a search of his property at the jail -- a black jacket, a pair of black boots and a pair of black jeans.
The items were sent for analysis to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, and on Feb. 28 criminalists at the bureau confirmed that DNA testing on a blood stain found on the left boot matched Wilson's DNA profile "at all genetic loci tested."
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