WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Court TV) — Prosecutors have filed a formal recommendation ahead of sentencing for a man convicted of killing a teen boy at random.
(L) Ryan Rogers (Palm Beach Gardens PD), (R) Semmie Williams, Jr. (Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office) via WPTV
Semmie Williams, 43, was convicted in January 2026 of second-degree murder with a weapon in the death of Ryan Rogers, 14. Now, prosecutors have asked that Williams be sentenced to life in prison.
Ryan was reported missing after failing to return home after a bike ride on Nov. 15, 2021. The next morning, his body was found in a wooded area along an I-95 overpass. An autopsy revealed his cause of death was several stab wounds to his head, neck and hand; three of the wounds “pierced his skull and hit his brain,” prosecutors said.
“Ryan’s injuries tell the horrific story of what he went through on that November evening,” prosecutors wrote in their motion. “The bruises and cuts to his face show that the Defendant started with his fists before he switched to the knife. The stab wounds to Ryan’s head demonstrate the brutality and aggression that the Defendant had for this child, who was just trying to get home. The Defendant stabbed him so many times and with such force that Ryan’s body responded by going into neurogenic shock.”
Williams, who was described by police at the time of his 2021 arrest as a “homeless drifter,” was tied to the scene of the crime by DNA, investigators said. Williams was also caught on surveillance cameras walking in the area. He was arrested in Miami and then brought north to West Palm Beach. When the corrections officer asked him if he understood the charges, Williams allegedly responded, “Yeah, murder, because of what they did to black people about giving them syphilis.” He then allegedly added, while raising his voice, “Yeah, I killed that motherf—er and I’ll kill you, too.”
Prosecutors note in their motion that this wasn’t Williams’ first brush with the law. Williams was convicted of battery on a person 65 years of age or older and aggravated assault by strangulation in Georgia for a 2014 incident in which he randomly followed a 66-year-old man as he was walking on the sidewalk and attacked him. Williams strangled the victim to the point he could not breathe; that person survived, in part, because good Samaritans saw the attack and intervened. Williams pleaded guilty to the charges in that case and was sentenced to five years in prison, which was commuted to time served under Georgia’s “first offender” law.
Williams is scheduled to face sentencing on April 22.
