The Georgetown senior wide-receiver who was arrested late last month on the charge of first-degree murder while armed, Dijon Williams, was involved with a robbery that led to the killing of Nurudeen Thomas on July 21, according to filed police documents.
Details surrounding this robbery were revealed following a hearing in the U.S. District Court in Georgia on Oct. 2., where the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and prosecutors claimed that Williams was part of a group of at least four people who were involved in a robbery leading to Thomas’ death.
According to the court documents, obtained by WUSA9, at the preliminary hearing on Oct. 2, Federal Magistrate Judge Regina Cannon found “probable cause” that Williams had committed the offense of first-degree murder while armed, and felt the evidence presented against him constituted a “very strong case.” Cannon ordered Williams to be released with a $50,000 bond and that he live with his mother in Decatur, Georgia. According to the Washington Post, prosecutors claimed Williams is a danger to the community, and Cannon granted a temporary stay of the order, meaning Williams will be kept in jail until another hearing takes place.
The court documents detail the night of Thomas’s murder, using footage from several locations. The footage shows a “suspect vehicle,” identified as appearing to be a four-door Infiniti, and two suspects, known as “Suspect 1” and “Suspect 2.” According to the documents, following movement from Thomas and the suspects in the area, Thomas approached the suspect vehicle and entered the right rear passenger door. The suspects approached the vehicle, each opened a rear door, and a gunshot was heard. Thomas fell out of the suspect vehicle, and “Suspect 1” and “Suspect 2” entered the rear of the vehicle, which subsequently fled the site.
The footage also shows Thomas using his cell phone prior to his death, though the phone was not present at the scene when responding officers arrived. According to Thomas’s call records, the last five calls made from and received to Thomas’s phone were from a number connected to Williams. Further investigation revealed that Williams’s phone was in the vicinity of the crime at the time it occurred.
This connection was corroborated by a witness known as “W-5”, who placed Williams in D.C. at the time of the crime. According to W-5, Williams and the witness drove from Georgia back to Georgetown on July 19, where they stayed off-campus. W-5 identified Williams’s car as an early 2000’s pewter Infiniti, resembling the suspect vehicle in video footage, and claimed Williams had a gun with him during his visit. W-5 said that on July 21 around 8 a.m., they noticed Williams had left the dorm room, and texted Williams to check in on him. According to W-5, Williams did not respond until mid-day July 21, and he indicated that he was on his way back to Georgia. The witness’ account of Williams’s travels was verified by cellular data analysis.
At the time of Williams’s arrest, police also interviewed Suspect 3, who informed investigators that he was the driver of the suspect vehicle, the since-recovered Infiniti, at the time of the murder. According to Subject 3, who drove Williams and two other armed men, he was unaware a robbery was going to take place, and no one in the vehicle had mentioned a planned robbery. When they arrived at the scene of the crime, the driver said, the two armed passengers exited the vehicle and spoke to Thomas, leaving Williams and the driver in the car. Then Thomas got into the rear of the vehicle and handed Williams something. This is when the two armed men returned to the vehicle and opened the rear doors before someone yelled something the driver interpreted as a cue to the others to start the robbery. There was a gunshot and screams, and Thomas fell out of the vehicle, as seen in the footage. According to the driver, “he knew Williams was armed before the robbery but did not see a gun in his hands during the robbery itself.”
According to the documents, Williams is being charged with shooting Thomas, though it is unclear what specifically led to him being identified as the shooter.
With the temporary stay of Cannon’s release order, Williams remains in jail until another hearing can take place. As of Oct. 6, that hearing had not yet been scheduled, and no other arrests have been made.
