Let’s not forget that the accused has a long criminal record in Mass.
and that at the time of the Essex crime he had failed to appear in
court in Mass. for threatening to kill his girlfriend and her mother.

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Essex murder suspect accused of stabbing prison guard with pencil

Published: Friday, February 16, 2007
By Adam Silverman
Free Press Staff Writer

Christopher Williams, the man accused of carrying out last summer’s shooting spree in Essex, stabbed a guard in the back Thursday morning at the Springfield prison, Vermont State Police detectives said.

Williams, 28, attacked a correctional officer with a pencil as the guard left the prisoner’s cell after a routine welfare check, Corrections Commissioner Rob Hofmann said.

The guard, whom police identified as Mark Eastman, 37, of Windsor, was treated at the prison and later at a hospital in Springfield, and then he was released, Hofmann said.

The incident marks Williams’ second alleged physical confrontation with prison guards since his arrest Aug. 24 on two charges each of murder and attempted murder arising from that day’s rampage in Essex, including at the town elementary school.

One of Williams’ defense attorneys in the shooting case, Lorin Duckman, said Thursday he had been informed of the incident and was “concerned.”

“We’ve heard reports that he thought someone inappropriately laid a hand on him, and he reacted,” Duckman said. “We’re obviously concerned. We don’t want to see him hurt, we don’t want him to hurt anyone else, and we don’t want him to hurt himself.”

Williams could face a charge of assault on a correctional officer, Detective Sgt. Richard Holden of the Bureau of Criminal Investigations said in a news release Thursday night.

Eastman had gone to check on Williams at about 6:45 a.m. in a segregation unit at the prison when he was assaulted after turning to leave, Hofmann said.

“The officer exited the cell and secured the inmate inside the cell while he called for assistance,” Hofmann said, reading from a brief report on the incident.

Williams’ earlier confrontation with prison guards occurred in September at the same prison. He faces a charge of simple assault on a correctional officer on allegations he bit several guards who were trying to subdue him. One of the officers, Tyler Trombley, said in court papers that the incident left him and his wife “very upset,” and that medication he took to ward off potential infections made him “violently ill” for three weeks.

“I would like him to be made an example for all other inmates,” Trombley wrote in a victim impact statement on file at Vermont District Court in Burlington. “Maybe officers won’t get assaulted.”

Corrections officials and police have said Williams has been a frequent disciplinary problem and requires special attention. He was placed on a restrictive diet in prison after he allegedly smeared excrement in his cell, and sheriff’s deputies have brought Williams into court on at least two occasions strapped into a “restraint chair.”

Williams is jailed without bail pending trial on the murder charges. He is accused of killing Linda Lambesis, 57, the mother of his ex-girlfriend, and Essex Elementary School teacher Alicia Shanks, 56, and wounding two others. Williams has pleaded not guilty and is next due in court April 3.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !