ST. LOUIS (Court TV) — A man will spend decades in prison in Missouri after admitting to killing his ex-girlfriend and leaving her body in a nature preserve in Illinois.
Trenton Ivy pleads guilty in court on Oct. 5, 2026. (KSDK)
Trenton Ivy, 33, was initially charged with first-degree murder, abandonment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence in the death of Marquisha Williams, 29. Ivy, who shared four children with Williams, pleaded guilty on Monday to amended charges of second-degree murder, tampering with a motor vehicle and tampering with physical evidence as part of an agreement with prosecutors.
Williams was reported missing on Dec. 20, 2023; detectives quickly determined she was last seen with the defendant in her 2020 Jeep Compass. The couple had dropped off their four children at daycare centers and relatives’ homes before driving to Williams’ job, family told police, Law&Crime reported.
Police arrested Ivy on Dec. 22, 2023, in Racine, Wisconsin, on unrelated charges. When police arrested him, he was alone in Williams’ car. Investigators said they found “apparent blood and biological material” in the Jeep, along with Williams’ personal items.
In interviews with investigators, Ivy admitted to killing the victim, saying that the two had a physical altercation that led to her death in St. Louis; he then admitted that he took her body to Illinois and left it in an unknown location. Her body was found on Dec. 28 in a nature preserve in Litchfield, Illinois. Prosecutors said in charging documents reviewed by Court TV that the victim had been strangled to death.
Marquisha Williams’ body was found on Dec. 28, 2023. (KSDK)
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” Williams’ mother said in a victim impact statement on Monday, KSDK reported. The outlet also said the couple’s children were in the courtroom, where they asked their father, “Why did you do this?”
Judge Stanley James Wallach sentenced Ivy to consecutive sentences totaling 42 years in prison. “There is no number of years — 42 years, 100 years — that will ever justify this horrific crime,” prosecutor Melissa Price Smith said, KSDK reported. “We know this dear family and those four children will live with this loss of Marquisha Williams every single day.”
