ST. LOUIS – Rather than face trial for the 2021 kidnapping and murder of a disabled woman in the city’s Bevo neighborhood, a St. Louis man agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges.

Darris K. Williams, 37, appeared in St. Louis Circuit Court last Friday and pleaded guilty to first-degree involuntary manslaughter and first-degree kidnapping.

Williams was initially charged with first-degree murder, robbery, and kidnapping, but prosecutors dismissed the robbery charge and amended the murder charge.

Police and prosecutors said Williams and Anthony D. Newberry, now 30, attacked Lynette Lecates on May 23, 2021, and stole her debit card. However, they couldn’t use the debit card without her pin number.

Williams and Newberry forced Lecates into the trunk of their car and drove her to several locations before stopping in the 5200 block of South 38th Street. The two men beat Lecates again, removed her dialysis port, and left her for dead.

Lecates was eventually located and taken to the hospital. She died on June 9, 2021, after being in a coma for two weeks. She was 41.

Williams was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter and five years for kidnapping, which he’ll serve concurrently.

This past August, Newberry pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. He was sentenced to 20 years on the murder charge and 15 years for kidnapping. He’ll serve both sentences concurrently.

Newberry has another case pending in which he is accused of holding an unarmed 73-year-old corrections officer hostage in August 2023 while incarcerated at the St. Louis Justice Center.