Man who killed family put to death

COLUMBIA — A Georgia man convicted of killing his wife and son to collect life insurance money was executed Friday.

Luke Williams, 56, was put to death by lethal injection. He made no final statement and kept his eyes closed as the drugs were administered.

Williams was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m.

He was convicted of killing his 39-year-old wife, Linda, and their 12-year-old son, Shaun, in June 1991. Authorities said he took them across the state line into Sumter National Forest, where he killed them.

Their bodies had been doused with gasoline and set afire in the family's van. The van had been driven into a tree in what police called a botched attempt to stage an accident.

Linda Williams had been beaten to death; Shaun strangled.

Williams was arrested the next year after trying to collect on $525,000 in life insurance policies.

Williams and his family had been living in Georgia, about 10 miles west of the South Carolina border. Williams had told authorities that he last saw his family when they went shopping the morning their bodies were discovered.

Investigator Don Bullock said that shortly after the deaths, Williams' plan became apparent: The disability money he'd been living off was about to run out, and his wife was planning to leave him and return to her parents in Florida.

Williams took out life insurance policies totaling more than half a million dollars on his wife and their son.

"I think he panicked," Bullock said recently. "He decided to take his family out. ... I think he had a plan, but it wasn't ready. He found out she was leaving, so he had to act fast."

In the more than 15 years since his conviction, Williams had exhausted his state and federal appeals. Only eight other inmates have been on South Carolina's death row longer.