Willie Kelly, 67, was working as a security guard at the A&P supermarket on Perkins Road in Baton Rouge on January 5, 1979, when two masked men entered the store to commit a robbery. One, identified as Robert Wayne Williams, carried a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun; the other was Ralph Holmes. As Kelly bagged groceries, Holmes tried to take Kelly’s pistol from its holster. When Kelly moved his hand toward the weapon, Williams shouted don’t try it and fired a single point-blank shot that struck Kelly in the face and killed him.

After the killing Williams and Holmes completed the robbery; Holmes pistol-whipped a customer and Williams’s shotgun discharged again, wounding two people in the feet. An informant later identified both men to police. Williams was arrested, tried and convicted for Kelly’s murder and sentenced to death. Williams was executed by the state of Louisiana on December 14, 1983.