Florida mom, boyfriend charges upgraded to murder after 10-year-old boy dies from alleged abuse
The US state of Florida will be seeking the death penalty against a Jamaican couple facing murder charges after the death of the woman’s 10-year-old son from “unimaginable abuse”.
Ten-year-old Xavier Williams was tied to a ladder, beaten, and had a 10-pound dumbbell dropped onto his stomach. His intestines ruptured, and although doctors tried to save his life, the youngster died a month later, on March 21, 2025, at a children’s hospital in Orlando, Florida.
His mother, 37-year-old Kimberly Mills, a former resident of Rose Heights in St James, and her boyfriend, 36-year-old Andre Walker, have been indicted as principals to first-degree murder, first-degree felony murder, as well as aggravated child abuse.
Keniel Williams, Xavier’s father, was in the US state of Connecticut when he received the devastating call that his son had been hospitalised. He boarded a plane, his body trembling, tears streaming down his face as he made his way to Florida to see his son, only to arrive and learn of the alleged abuse he had suffered.
“I received the call at 2:35 a.m. on February 23rd, and I booked a 6 a.m. flight from Connecticut to Orlando,” Williams recalled.
A native of Montego Bay, St James, and a past student of Herbert Morrison Technical High School, Williams said by the time he landed in Florida, his son was gone.
“I cried the entire flight,” Williams recalled. “I was just crying like a baby.”
Williams and his wife had been friends since their high school days in Jamaica. He had been the one to bring her to the United States, helping to build a life together. But he said once she received her US passport, she left him. The divorce that followed stripped him of nearly everything – their home, stability, and, eventually, even his children.
Their two boys, Xavier and his eight-year-old brother, were living with their mother in Florida. But behind closed doors, their home became a house of horrors.
Investigators say the abuse had been ongoing for months. Xavier suffered relentless beatings that left his small body battered and broken. His younger brother, too, was being abused, but he survived.
Last Thursday, the State Attorney’s Office, while announcing they will seek the death penalty against Mills and Walker, outlined that count one, which applies to both defendants, states that on or about February 22, 2025, while unlawfully engaged in child abuse, resulting in the murder of Xavier Williams.
Counts two and three relate to alleged physical child abuse between December 24, 2024, and February 20, 2025, including striking Xavier with a dumbbell, causing great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement. Other objects, including boxing gloves, flashlights, and a copper rod, are also listed as being used to abuse the child.
“The other thing I want to mention at this point is we are seeking the death penalty as to both defendants in this case. As you know, for capital punishment, for the most heinous of crimes and for the most vulnerable of victims, and that’s what we have in this particular case,” said Fifth Judicial Circuit State’s Attorney William M. Gladson.
Walker and Mills have both submitted written not-guilty pleas in their case.