Las Vegas jury convicts man, lover of attempted murder

Easter “Katie” Williams survived a gunshot to her head at the hands of her husband’s lover.

More than a year later, she continues to undergo therapy after doctors replaced part of her skull.

On Wednesday, tucked between her mother and cousin inside a Las Vegas courtroom, she watched a jury convict Maira Sepulveda, 26, and Gabrial Williams, 36, of attempted murder and several other charges in connection with the September 2015 shooting.

“God showed up and showed out,” she said afterward. “It’s a miracle for me to even say, ‘It’s a miracle.’”

Sepulveda buried her head in her hands, sobbing at the defense table, as eight women and four men convicted her. Gabrial Williams silently stared straight ahead before being led out of the courtroom, when he resisted deputies and extended a middle finger to a photographer.

Prosecutors said Sepulveda, a former Spearmint Rhino stripper, shot Easter Williams in the head after Easter Williams found Sepulveda in her bed.

Easter Williams had taken a cab to the couple’s Rhodes Ranch home after working on the Strip as an escort in the early morning hours of Sept. 13, 2015. She took the cab after her husband failed to pick her up, prosecutors said.

She found her bedroom door locked, and the couple quarreled. After she managed to push the door open, Sepulveda grabbed a .22-caliber handgun that Gabrial Williams kept on his nightstand, prosecutors said.

Easter Williams testified that her husband told his lover to shoot her, and Sepulveda fired two shots.

Sepulveda told jurors she had only known Gabrial Williams a few weeks and had sex with him once. She testified that she was passed out drunk in another bedroom and awoke only after Williams shook her awake and told her he had shot his wife.

He and Sepulveda drove the victim to Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center, and told a security guard she had shot herself before they fled and hid from police for days.

Sepulveda’s attorney, Carl Arnold, told jurors that she drove the victim to the hospital instead of dialing 911 because she thought that was best at the time.

“You don’t take them to the hospital with the intent to kill,” Arnold said.

Doctors described her injury as the result of an “assassination shot,” prosecutors said. She survived because of “sheer will to live.”

Gabrial Williams’ lawyer, Roy Nelson, said the defendants’ actions after the shooting did not explain what happened in the bedroom.

Prosecutor Agnes Lexis called defense explanations of the shooting a “convenient truth.”

“For Easter Williams, the truth will never be convenient,” she said. “This was not an accident.”

After the verdict, during a subsequent hearing in which he also was found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm, Gabrial Williams insisted that his wife shot herself with her own gun.

“We were very happy with the verdict. This was a quick decision by the jury,” prosecutor Chad Lexis said. “Easter Williams came back from the dead. … And to see her come into the courtroom and tell her story was amazing.”

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.