Sex offender gets life sentence for
killing teen
December 16, 2006
By Heather Ratcliffe
St. Louis — A sex offender
convicted of beating and strangling a 16-year-old boy to death in
2004 was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole.
Andrew Roberson, 36, insisted he
was not guilty even after St. Louis Circuit Judge Maggie Neill
sentenced him for the first-degree murder of Dominic Williams.
"I'll fight this if it takes 20
years from now," Roberson said. He was convicted by a jury Nov. 2.
Williams, whose life and death
became a symbol of problems with Missouri's foster care system, was
found naked in a trash bin in the Mark Twain neighborhood five days
before his 17th birthday in June 2004.
Roberson, who lived in Dominic's
neighborhood of Walnut Park, strangled him with an extension cord
and beat him with a pipe or similar object, according to
prosecutors. He made incriminating statements to police and family,
according to court testimony. Blood and the victim's DNA were found
at his home.
Roberson had a prior history of
violence against teenage boys. In 1986, he threatened a 14-year-old
with a knife and sodomized him in the woods in Cool Valley. The next
year he choked and sodomized a 15-year-old fellow inmate in the
shower of the juvenile detention center in Clayton. He pleaded
guilty in both cases and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Court records show that Roberson
dropped out of school in 10th grade and has a history of
psychological problems. His father, Winford L. Stokes Jr., was
executed in Missouri in 1990 for strangling and stabbing a waitress
he had met in a bar. Stokes was convicted in two other killings and
claimed he had raped six women.
Dominic, the slain 16-year-old,
lived a troubled life as well. He was born premature and
drug-addicted in 1987 and removed from his mother by a judge seven
months later because of medical neglect.
He suffered abuse and neglect as
authorities shuffled him through a series of group and foster homes,
including one with no heat or electricity, according to state
records. He suffered hearing and neurological damage, was mildly
retarded and had behavior problems including some that suggested he
had been sexually abused.
Records also show the Missouri
Department of Family Services failed to place him in six possible
permanent homes, including with his paternal grandmother, who raised
his older brother.
Dominic's last foster mother wrote
a letter to the court Friday defending the state system.
"It was the selfish, heinous and
down-right evil actions of Mr. Andrew Roberson that led to this
child's death," said Anna Hall.
Annette House, assistant regional
director for the Missouri Department of Social Service Children's
Division, told the judge that more than 200 people — friends,
relatives, teachers, social workers and strangers — attended
Dominic's funeral.
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