(This story was updated to add new information.)
WEST PALM BEACH — Semmie Lee Williams is headed to state prison for 35 years in the 2021 stabbing death of 14-year-old Ryan Rogers of Palm Beach Gardens.
Circuit Judge Cymonie Rowe sentenced Williams, 43, at the end of a hour-long hearing at the Palm Beach County Courthouse. Rowe said she had to consider both aggravating and mitigating factors in reaching her decision. She noted Williams’ history of violent acts as well as his history of mental illness.
As he was being led out the courtroom, Williams screamed that he needed to be moved into the general prison population and stated that he was being assaulted in the county jail, repeating a claim he made during his testimony at the sentencing hearing.
Williams’ outburst drew an angry dismissal from Rogers’ father, Brian.
“You’ll be dead within a year,” the elder Rogers said, cursing at Williams. Brian Rogers declined to comment as he exited the courtroom following the judge’s ruling.
State Attorney Alexcia Cox released a prepared statement following the sentencing decision acknowledging the Rogers family’s loss.
“While the sentence delivers a measure of justice, no number of years can restore what was taken from Ryan’s family and our community — the life of a child full of promise,” her statement said.
Past victim of Semmie Lee Williams attack testifies at sentencing
Rowe’s sentence fell between the life term that prosecutors demanded and the 21 years the defense proposed. Prior to issuing it, she listened to testimony from a state witness and from Williams, as well as prepared statements from Ryan’s friends and family.
Dennis Joseph Brincks, 77, appeared remotely from his home in Gwinnett County, Georgia, testifying to being the victim of a 2014 attack by Williams in the Atlanta area.
Brincks said he was walking from one of his properties to another when Williams jumped on top of him, beat him and choked him.
“I will never forget this man’s face,” Brincks said.
Williams pleaded guilty to charges of battery and aggravated assault by strangulation in that case and had a five-year prison sentence commuted to time served under Georgia’s first-time offender law.
Assistant State Attorney Jo Wilensky told the court the Georgia crime demonstrated a history of violent acts by Williams.
Sienna Weiss, Ryan’s friend and Palm Beach Gardens Soccer League teammate, read a prepared statement describing his passion for the sport. She spoke of him laughing and making plans hours before his death.
“Ryan’s death devastated an entire family and deeply wounded a community,” she said.
Continuing an argument his defense attorneys advanced during his trial, Williams denied being responsible for Rogers’ death and repeated his frequent claim that he was the victim of gang-stalking — of groups of people constantly following and attacking him.
“I didn’t kill Ryan. I was set up,” Williams told the court. “Everybody knows that I was poor and I was homeless and that’s how I became a victim of gang-stalking. They targeted poor and homeless people.”
Williams also repeated claims he made during the trial that police investigators falsified evidence against him. He requested donations to assist with an appeal and attempted to show a piece paper with his contact information as he turned to face reporters seated in the back of the courtroom.
The act prompted Rowe to instruct Williams to turn around and face the bench.
Ryan Rogers found dead after 2021 bike ride in Palm Beach Gardens
After about five hours of deliberation, jurors on Jan. 23 convicted Williams of second-degree murder. Rowe earlier had ruled that the state could not seek the death penalty because of Williams’ longstanding mental health issues.
Ryan was a freshman at William T. Dwyer High School when he left his home in the Alton neighborhood along Donald Ross Road in Palm Beach Gardens for a bike ride on the evening of Nov. 15, 2021.
He headed south along Central Boulevard, and his body was found the next morning in a wooded area near the Interstate 95 overpass. Williams’ DNA was found on headphones near Ryan’s bicycle and under his fingernails.
Williams’ attorneys spent years building an insanity defense, arguing that his longstanding schizophrenia meant he could not understand right from wrong. Rowe ruled one month before the trial that their defense psychologist could testify to that effect.
However, on the eve of trial, Williams abandoned the strategy, switching his plea from not guilty by reason of insanity to not guilty. His attorneys told jurors he had stumbled upon Ryan’s body after someone else attacked him and kept moving, unaware the boy was bleeding or that he was a child.
“What happened to Ryan Rogers is undoubtedly a tragedy. No one in this courtroom will disagree with that,” Stephanie Gagerie, Williams’ lead public defender, said during her opening statement at his trial. “But Mr. Williams is not responsible for that tragedy.”
Williams’ mental competency was brought into question before and during the trial. He testified on his own behalf over the span of two days and spoke of being a victim of gang-stalking, a topic on which he had posted a series of videos on YouTube in the years before his arrest.
In one video posted in the days after the attack, he spoke of people on bicycles attacking him.
From the witness stand, Williams told jurors that Freemasons, a fraternal order dating to medieval times, and other organizations with ties to law enforcement and government had followed him with the intent of injuring him.
He also moved twice to fire his attorneys, telling the judge in a handwritten note on Jan. 22 that their poor performance had denied him a fair trial. Rowe denied Williams’ request to represent himself, citing his history of mental-health issues.
Williams had spent the weeks before Rogers died homeless and living on the streets of Miami, where he received help from at least one nonprofit that helps the transient.
He has no known ties to Palm Beach county, and it remains unclear what led him to travel to Palm Beach Gardens or to the area along I-95 where he encountered Rogers.
Julius Whigham II covers northern Palm Beach County and public safety for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Semmie Lee Williams sentenced for 2021 murder of Ryan Rogers, 14
Reporting by Julius Whigham II, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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