Mike Faher
mfaher@tribdem.com
—
Tammy M. Smith was an outgoing mother of three who hoped to soon become a phlebotomist at Memorial Medical Center.
But family members said the 32-year-old could not free herself from a years-long entanglement with a man who had a violent past.
Murder suspect Shawn L. Williams re-entered Smith’s life one last time early Tuesday, when he kicked in the door to her Johnstown apartment and, according to family, uttered these words: “It’s your time.”
Minutes later, after police allege that he had mortally wounded his ex-girlfriend with a knife, Williams delivered another message.
“When he killed her, he looked at my mother and said, ‘Till death do us part,’ ” said Tawnya Smith-Dickson, the victim’s sister.
As the 37-year-old Williams sat in Cambria County Prison facing murder charges, Smith’s family spent Wednesday preparing for a funeral. And they recounted the details of a damaged and damaging relationship that eventually took their loved one’s life.
Smith-Dickson said her sister met Williams about four years ago.
“She thought he was someone sweet and kind. He was nice to her,” Smith-Dickson said. “Then she found out about his past.”
Williams resides in Pittsburgh, and he has a long criminal record in Allegheny County. An electronic database shows cases dating to 1992.
Those court dockets display numerous guilty pleas to a wide variety of offenses, beginning with carrying a firearm without a license in 1993.
During the past 17 years, Williams also has entered pleas to charges including robbery, theft, terroristic threats, drug possession and assault. In 1996, a homicide charge that had been filed against him was withdrawn.
Williams’ record is much shorter in Cambria County. But one ongoing case involves Smith.
In late December, Johnstown police said they found Smith crying at her living-room table. She told officers that she had opened the door of her Strayer Street apartment to find Williams.
“Williams then pushed Tammy into the wall and ran up the steps into her apartment,” police wrote in a court affidavit, adding that the suspect took $350 from Smith’s purse and fled.
That case, though, has not yet made it to a preliminary hearing. In March, Smith signed a document requesting that the Cambria County district attorney’s office dismiss the charges against Williams.
Nonetheless, the case remained open. But Smith’s release form also said she would not cooperate with prosecutors if the case moved forward.
Smith-Dickson said fear was the reason her sister signed that piece of paper.
“(Williams) threatened to kill her,” she said.
Smith apparently even attempted to aid Williams at one point earlier this year, having pleaded guilty in June to hindering his apprehension by police on an outstanding warrant.
But the alleged threats didn’t stop. In fact, some say they escalated.
“She was scared for her life the past few weeks,” Smith-Dickson said. “She was really, really scared.”
In court documents filed this week, Johnstown police said Williams “had sent numerous threatening text messages and made telephone calls in which he threatened to kill Smith.”
Smith reported one recent incident in which Williams allegedly threatened her oldest daughter, the victim’s sister said. But, other than that, Smith apparently did not seek police help and, according to court records, did not file for a protection-from-abuse order.
“She just wanted him out of her life,” Smith-Dickson said.
That would not happen, though.
Within the past few weeks, Smith – citing landlord difficulties – had moved into her mother’s apartment in the Oakhurst Homes public-housing complex. That’s where, sometime around 4 a.m. Tuesday, Williams allegedly kicked in the door brandishing a knife.
Williams has made no public comment other than saying “whatever happens, happens” during his arraignment Tuesday evening.
But Smith-Dickson said her sister could not escape Williams’ attachment to a relationship that had ended.
“He had a fatal attraction,” Smith-Dickson said. “He figured, if he couldn’t have her, no one could.”
Smith’s mother and her youngest child were at the apartment when Williams entered Tuesday morning. Neither was hurt.
Smith leaves behind her three children – ages 15, 10 and 2 – as well as a 6-month-old grandchild. She was a nurse’s aide working at St. Jude’s Haven, a Mount Airy Drive personal-care home, and she had just been trained as a phlebotomist.
“She was a fun, outgoing person. She would do anything she could for you,” Smith’s sister said. “She had a lot of friends.”
Smith-Dickson said she is now caring for her sister’s children.
“I want to know why he took her from the kids and from us,” she said. “That’s all I want to ask, is why.”
The family has set up a fund for donations benefiting Smith’s children at Somerset Trust Co.
Also, donations can be made in care of Hindman Funeral Homes and Crematory Inc. at 146 Chandler Ave. in Johnstown.
