Tampa Man Convicted Of Killing Mekiyana Williams Skips The Jury, Demands His Own Death Sentence
A Hillsborough jury found Thomas Sapp guilty of murdering and raping 23-year-old Mekiyana Williams. On Monday, instead of asking the same jurors to spare his life, Sapp told the judge he wants to skip that step and be sentenced to death.
Case at a glance
- Thomas Sapp — Defendant, convicted
- Mekiyana Williams — Victim, victim
Next: Judge Palermo has granted Sapp's waiver of the jury's sentencing recommendation and sent the jury home. He said he will schedule a hearing in the coming months to hear the mitigation evidence Spradley outlined and to decide Sapp's sentence himself — a decision that, under Florida's capital sentencing law, still requires him to weigh that mitigation against the aggravating factors in the case.
Sapp tells the judge he wants death, not the jury
Thomas Sapp, 56, stood in a Hillsborough County courtroom Monday and told Circuit Judge Thomas Palermo he did not want the jury that had just convicted him deciding whether he lives or dies. He asked Palermo to skip the jury's sentencing recommendation entirely and impose a death sentence himself.
"They convicted me of sexual assault, and so respecting that decision even though it's wrong, I don't need them to make any more," Sapp said, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
He went further. "I'm 56. Death and life are the same, and I would prefer the death sentence," he said. "My thinking this morning is that I want death, and they'll give me life."
Palermo spent about an hour questioning Sapp to make sure he understood what he was asking for, at one point telling him directly: "In reality, if you were sentenced to death, the state of Florida would eventually take your life. Do you understand that, sir?" Sapp said he understood, and the judge granted the request and sent the jury home.
The night Mekiyana Williams died
The case goes back to February 28, 2023. Around 9:30 p.m. that evening, Hillsborough County deputies went to the Avenue Apartments on Ave Club Drive in Temple Terrace for a wellness check and found Williams dead inside. Her 2-year-old child was in the apartment, unharmed, according to Hoodline's account of the case.
Three days later, Sapp sat down with two Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office detectives and confessed, the Tampa Bay Times reported. He said he'd had a bad day and believed Williams, whom he called his "sugar baby," was lying to him about where she'd been. He went to her apartment just after midnight on February 28 to take back the keys to a Dodge Charger he'd bought her.
They got into a fight. When Williams threatened to call police, Sapp said, he "made a decision" and suffocated her by placing his hands over her nose and mouth for five to ten minutes. He laid her body on the bed and used paper towels and rubbing alcohol to clean up, then left — leaving the 2-year-old alone in the apartment for roughly 19 hours before the child was found, per Hoodline's reporting on the Times' earlier coverage.
During that two-hour police interview, Sapp admitted to killing Williams but repeatedly denied raping her. He was arrested March 3, 2023, and charged with first-degree premeditated murder, sexual battery causing serious injury, and child neglect. A Hillsborough judge denied prosecutors' request to hold him without bond, instead setting bond at $502,000 with house arrest if he made bail, Hoodline reported, citing the Times' coverage from that period.
"I'm 56. Death and life are the same, and I would prefer the death sentence," — Thomas Sapp, to Hillsborough Judge Thomas Palermo, per the Tampa Bay Times.
Who's in the courtroom
Mekiyana Williams was 23 years old and had a 2-year-old child. Thomas Sapp, 56, is the man a jury convicted of killing her.
Hillsborough Circuit Judge Thomas Palermo presided over the trial and penalty phase, and is the one who will now decide Sapp's sentence alone. Assistant Public Defender Jennifer Spradley represents Sapp and laid out the mitigation case she planned to present. Dr. Milad Webb, an associate medical examiner, testified about the injuries found on Williams' body during the Hillsborough Medical Examiner's Office's examination.
The charges and what the jury decided
Sapp was charged in March 2023 with first-degree premeditated murder, sexual battery causing serious injury, and child neglect. Under Florida law, first-degree murder of the kind alleged here is a capital felony — meaning death is a legally available sentence.
Last week, the jury found that prosecutors proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Sapp raped and murdered Williams, convicting him of first-degree murder and sexual battery. The reporting reviewed for this story does not specify the jury's verdict on the child neglect count.
Normally, a capital murder conviction in Florida moves to a penalty phase where the same jury hears evidence and recommends a sentence — death or life — to the judge, who has final say but gives the recommendation significant weight. Sapp's decision Monday waived that jury recommendation altogether, leaving Palermo to decide without one.
What each side has said
Sapp told Palermo he'd been thinking about forgoing the jury for the 1,400 days he's been jailed awaiting trial, and that his anger at the jury's rape finding was only "1%" of his decision. He said he knows condemned inmates often spend 30 or more years on death row and figures his odds of being executed before he dies of natural causes are slim.
Before Palermo ruled on Sapp's request, he asked Spradley to summarize the mitigating evidence she intended to present. She said she had family members and friends ready to testify, along with undisputed facts: Sapp has no prior criminal history and no disciplinary infractions during his time in custody. She described him as a "loving grandfather to nine grandchildren and a father to three children," said he was "cooperative with law enforcement in this case," and said he "accepted responsibility for her death," according to the Tampa Bay Times.
That cooperation has a limit built into the record. Sapp confessed to killing Williams within days of her death, but he denied raping her in that same interview — a denial the jury rejected when it convicted him of sexual battery based largely on Dr. Webb's testimony that her injuries were likely inflicted at the time of her death.
He's not the only one asking for death
Sapp's request isn't an isolated move. In Pinellas County, Steven Gress pleaded guilty to murdering and dismembering a Gulfport teenager after asking a judge in July to give him the death penalty instead of going to trial.
Billy Adams, convicted in September of murder for the killings of Alana Sims and her unborn child, wrote a letter from jail asking for a death sentence before changing his mind at a recent hearing, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
What happens next
Judge Palermo has granted Sapp's waiver of the jury's sentencing recommendation and sent the jury home. He said he will schedule a hearing in the coming months to hear the mitigation evidence Spradley outlined and to decide Sapp's sentence himself — a decision that, under Florida's capital sentencing law, still requires him to weigh that mitigation against the aggravating factors in the case.
How this plays in court
From a prosecutor's standpoint, the sexual battery conviction rests on physical evidence, not Sapp's word — he denied raping Williams in his own confession, and the count still landed because Dr. Webb testified her genital injuries were likely inflicted at the time of her death. That's the kind of case prosecutors build when a defendant's statement and the medical record diverge: trust the exam over the explanation.
Sapp waiving the jury's sentencing recommendation is legally unusual, and it's exactly why Palermo spent an hour questioning him rather than granting it on the spot. Capital sentences get automatic appellate scrutiny in Florida, and a defense attorney down the road will look hard at whether that waiver was knowing and voluntary or driven by anger at the jury's verdict.
The defense will still put on Spradley's mitigation case in front of Palermo alone — no prior record, clean conduct in custody, family support, cooperation with detectives, and an early acceptance of responsibility for the killing. Prosecutors will likely point the judge toward the aggravators: the nature of the sexual battery finding and the fact that a 2-year-old was left alone with the body for roughly 19 hours.
Without a jury recommendation to lean on, Palermo carries the full weight of Florida's capital sentencing analysis by himself, which tends to draw closer appellate review in cases that reach a death sentence — particularly one where the defendant explicitly asked to remove the jury from the process.
- Tampa Bay Times: Tampa Man Convicted Of Killing Mekiyana Williams Skips The Jury, Demands His Own Death Sentence
- Yahoo: After being found guilty of murder and rape, Tampa man asks for death sentence
- Hoodline: Tampa Man on Trial Admits Killing Mekiyana Williams, Fights Rape Charge