MS Coast man said he felt threatened before he shot a hotel guest. Here’s what police say
A Gulfport man charged with first-degree murder told his attorney he shot and killed a man at an extended stay hotel because the man lunged at him, though witnesses told police otherwise.
Antwon Duane Williams, 32, is accused in the May 6 shooting death of 40-year-old Charles Martel Oatis in a room at InTown Suites on Highway 49.
During a preliminary hearing, Harrison County Justice Court Judge Nick Patano found enough evidence in the case to send it to a grand jury for indictment.
Williams wanted his bond reduced, but Harrison County prosecuting attorney Herman Cox objected based on the details of the crime. The judge kept Williams’s bond at $1 million.
Before issuing the ruling, the judge heard testimony from Gulfport police Officer Eli Zacharias, who shot down the story Williams had told his attorney, Lee Russell.
Those questions included whether Williams had told the truth when he suggested that Oatis had threatened his life the week before the shooting and that he was acting in self-defense.
“There was bad blood between them,” the police officer said, but he didn’t know of any threat to kill Williams.
Zacharias said the investigating officers had spoken to five or six witnesses in the hotel room with Williams at the time of the shooting.
As soon as Oatis walked into the hotel room, Zacharias said, the witnesses saw Williams pull out a 9 mm handgun and shoot Oatis once in the stomach.
Afterward, Oatis managed to make it back out of the hotel room but collapsed and died outside the hotel manager’s apartment before he could get any help.
Oatis died of a single gunshot wound to the stomach.
Wiliams’ attorney questioned whether the witnesses had been truthful with investigating officers after Zacharias confirmed the others in the room at the time of the shooting had been arrested on methamphetamine charges.
