TAVARES, Fla. (Court TV) — A woman will spend the rest of her life in prison after a jury chose not to sentence her to death for the murders of an elderly couple in their home.
Vickie Williams sits in court on Sept. 25, 2026. (Court TV)
Vickie Lynn Williams, 53, was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and grand theft auto in the deaths of Darryl Getman, 83, and Sharon Getman, 83. The elderly couple was found dead inside their home on New Year’s Eve 2022.
When first responders arrived at the Getmans’ home following a 911 call, they found the garage door open with no car inside and bloody shoe prints on the ground. Inside the house, Sharon Getman was found in the home’s entryway, “with a large amount of blood surrounding her and white towels next to her as if someone attempted to render aid or clean up,” investigators said in documents reviewed by Court TV. Darryl Getman was found nearby, with “severe head and facial trauma, as well as a large butcher-style knife with a yellow handle stuck up to the hilt in his abdomen.”
In their closing arguments asking jurors to sentence Williams to death, prosecutors focused on the brutality of the killings, which they said were carried out with “decorative glassware” and multiple kitchen knives.
“In those last moments of their lives, what was going through the Getmans’ minds as the defendant, this stranger in their home, drove their own sharp knives into their body, piercing their skin, their muscle, their bones? What was going through Darryl Getman’s mind as he slid down the blinds in his kitchen onto the floor?” Assistant State Attorney Nicholas Camuccio said in court on Friday. “Most likely looking at his wife of 58 years, also dying on the floor right in front of him, while the defendant continuously slashed his body with seemingly every knife she could get her hands on in his home. Darryl Getman must have had real and excruciating mental anguish and an acute awareness of his impending death as he was butchered next to his wife.”
Williams was found days later in Savannah, Georgia, after investigators tracked the victims’ car to an Amtrak parking lot. She initially told police her name was “Vitoreyah Coffee,” and claimed that her friend had given her the car to live in because she was homeless. She denied being in Florida and said that she had been walking around Savannah at the time the victims were killed.
Sharon and Darryl Getman (Mount Dora Police Department)
At trial, Williams’ attorney, Mario Carranza, conceded that his client had been at the victims’ home, but said that she was mentally ill and suffering from hallucinations brought on by schizophrenia at the time.
“It’s clear that both of these murders occurred because Vickie Lynn Williams is severely mentally ill and wasn’t medicated when she killed these two wonderful victims. And as tragic and as horrible and as terrible as that is, that is a reason for life,” Carranza said on Friday as he urged the jury to spare his client the death penalty. “She was psychotic. She was hearing voices. Those voices were directing her to go from house to house to look for her children.”
Carranza told the jury that by finding her guilty of first-degree murder, the panel had already guaranteed his client’s future. “The only way she will ever leave the Florida Department of Corrections is dead, lifeless in a box,” he said. “Vickie will spend the rest of her days in a cold cement facility surrounded by huge lifeless cement walls with razor wire fences.”
While the jury found that the murders were cruel, atrocious or heinous, it disagreed with the state’s theory that Williams had been motivated by an intent to burglarize the couple. Camuccio had pointed to Williams’ behavior after the killings, saying that the defendant removed paintings hanging on the wall and “rifled through” a jewelry box.
After the jury delivered its verdict finding that Williams should not be put to death, Judge Cary Rada immediately imposed consecutive sentences of life without parole for the murders, to be followed by five years for stealing their car.
