Convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison for the murder of a Nashville prostitute, Laron Williams escaped from the Memphis Correctional Center in April 1981. Before his arrest on May 17, Williams shot and killed Memphis police lieutenant Clarence Cox, moving on to murder a Catholic priest, Rev. John Jackson, in Jackson, Tennessee. Unarmed when officers surrounded him in a coffee shop next to his motel, Williams was returned to prison pending trial on new charges of first-degree murder. He was convicted on both counts, receiving twin death sentences , but the ultimate execution was carried out in a rather unorthodox fashion. Mobbed by a gang of eight fellow inmates on July 7, 1985, Williams was beaten to death in the exercise yard of the Tennessee state prison at Nashville.