Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith thanked the pubic gallery for their respectful behaviour throughout the trial and warned they must treat the court in a “calm and civil way” when the verdict was read.
A woman, who was supporting Williams, cried with her head in her hands as the guilty verdict was read.
Crown Solicitor Amanda Gordon and prosecutor Anna McConachy successfully argued it was Williams who pulled the trigger, killing Woodford, 30, almost instantly in an execution-style shooting on March 6, 2022.
Williams escaped drug rehabilitation centre the Grace Foundation in Auckland where he lived on electronically monitored bail. He did this by “foiling” his ankle bracelet to interfere with the GPS monitoring.
The Crown produced CCTV footage of Williams in Te Awamutu that showed him with tinfoil around his ankle in the hours following the shooting.
Evidence produced during the month-long trial showed Williams smoked methamphetamine while living at the foundation.
He was “offline” for 12 hours during the time of the murder while he travelled in convoy with fellow Mongrel Mob associates to Taupō in the early hours of the morning.
A Grace Foundation house leader, who admitted in evidence he also smoked methamphetamine at the foundation daily, covered for Williams while he was gone.
Marty Durham pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Ryan Woodford. Photo / Kelly Makiha
Once in Taupō, Williams had a meeting with his gang members, including second in command Marty Durham, and a plan was hatched to shoot a Black Power member.
The Crown said there was no evidence Williams and Woodford were known to each other or there were particular grievances between the two. It was the Crown case the murder was an act of retaliation following gang tensions in the area.
Williams drove to the Adelphi Motel, an emergency housing motel known for housing Black Power members, while Durham was in the passenger seat.
He covered a firearm with a Black Power-affiliated gang patch and knocked on the door of Woodford’s motel unit and called out to him at 6.25am.
When Woodford opened the door, Williams fired one shot at point-blank range before getting back into the car and speeding off. Woodford died in front of his partner and children.
Durham, who was also supposed to stand trial, pleaded guilty to manslaughter before the trial got under way.
The Crown’s case was supported by two women, who were part of the Mongrel Mob group at the time, who gave key evidence against Williams.
In particular, Te Awatea Tawa detailed how she and Dana Mihinui were instructed to wait in a vehicle on the outskirts of Taupō.
She told the court during evidence how she and others helped Williams get back to Auckland and tried to ensure he wasn’t seen on CCTV cameras.
She said Williams asked her after the shooting if he needed to worry where her loyalties lay, which she took to mean he hoped she would not give evidence against him.
Initially, she told police a different story.
“But it’s been three years and I’ve had time to think about that and I’ve had heaps of hidings given to me too, so here I am,” she said during evidence in the second week of the trial.
She spoke about the methamphetamine-fuelled days leading up to the shooting and how she had been awake for the most part of seven to eight days.
After what happened in Taupō, she said she knew something had gone down, but she wasn’t aware what Williams had done until a friend messaged her and said Woodford had been shot dead.
The defence case
Williams’ lawyers, Ted Walsh and Melissa James, led a defence that Williams was not the shooter and was a “scapegoat”.
Walsh tried to persuade the jury in his closing argument that Williams was not there and noted none of the key witnesses had seen him at the motel pulling the trigger.
He also claimed Williams was a few centimetres taller than what the defence had worked out the height of the shooter would have been, based on CCTV footage of the shooting from the Adelphi Motel.
Following the guilty verdict, Justice Wilkinson-Smith thanked the jury members for their service and excused them from having to be on a jury for the next five years.
Williams and Durham are in custody awaiting a sentencing date.
Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.