Henrico teen enters guilty pleas in Bremer killing
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A 16-year-old Henrico boy Monday entered guilty pleas in a murder that shocked the region and nation in early 2021.
In Henrico Circuit Court, Dylan A. Williams admitted to firing the nine shots that killed 13-year-old Quioccasin Middle School student Lucia Bremer in the Gayton Forest West neighborhood near Godwin High School on the afternoon of March 26, 2021. In addition to that first-degree murder charge, Williams also entered a guilty plea in the attempted murder of Bremer’s friend, who was walking with her at the time of the shooting.
Williams, who was 14 at the time, will be sentenced by the court April 14. As a result of his guilty pleas, Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor intends to withdraw three other lesser charges against Williams, who still could spend a maximum of 60 years in prison.
“We want our community to know that today's plea deal has our full endorsement,” Bremer’s parents, Jonathan and Meredith Bremer, said in a statement. “While this process has been arduous, taking twists and turns and with delays that likely could have been avoided, it is the outcome that matters. We had the satisfaction of watching Lucia's murderer admit his guilt, and that is not something we were ever assured of before today.”
A motive for the shooting remains unclear, though evidence suggested that Williams had suffered trauma and mental health problems as a child and teen and had simply been intent on killing someone on the day of the murder. No evidence suggests that he knew Bremer or her friend, though they had all attended Quioccasin Middle School.
In court Monday, Henrico Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Toni Randall introduced a litany of evidence in the case, including a statement from Bremer’s friend who was walking with her that day.
According to the statement, the two girls were playing soccer at the Godwin High School soccer field with others for about half an hour, beginning at 3:30 p.m. Williams was standing near a fence adjacent to the field wearing a light-colored hooded sweatshirt and a blue medical mask, according to the girl (a juvenile identified as “H.T.”) and Anne Coward, the mother of another girl who had been playing soccer at the field.
Bremer and H.T. left the field at about 4:20 p.m., according to Coward, and began walking along a trail back to H.T.’s home in the 1900 block of Hickoryridge Drive, just a short distance away. According to several witness accounts, Williams followed them closely and then confronted them as they entered the garage of the home.
H.T. screamed “Gun! Gun!” when Williams displayed a weapon, and she was able to make it inside and slam the garage door, prompting her grandfather, Bob Tyson, to race downstairs and place a chair under the door, which he locked. According to testimony from nearby neighbor Mathew Smyers, who was putting items into his car at the time, Bremer screamed “Oh my god, what are you doing?” Just before Williams fired a number of shots in the garage, striking her.
Williams then walked along Windingridge Road, putting his gun away as he did, according to neighbor and witness Anthony Reyes, who was working in the backyard of his home at the time. Smyers then saw the shooter walk down the street toward Falconbridge Drive, and another neighbor, Regina Davis, later saw him run into the woods behind her house with a blue scooter, then return to retrieve it and run into the basement apartment of a home at 10411 Falconbridge Road.
According to Randall, Henrico Police officials checked to see if any children were registered to that addressed and received information that Williams did. At about 9 p.m. on the day of the shooting, police officials spoke with the homeowner, Wesley Truitt, who told them that he rented the basement of the home to Richard Pierce and his two adopted children, one of whom was Williams.
Detectives asked Pierce if there were any weapons in the home, and he showed them the 9-mm handgun that he owned and signed a search and seizure waiver. The casings found at the scene of the shooting were Spear 9-mm Luger Plus P, and they matched the cartridges in the gun, according to the statement of facts introduced by Randall.
Police that night interviewed Williams, who said that he had not handled the firearm that day.
On the following day, officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducted a test of the weapon recovered from Pierce, and an initial comparison of the shell casings from the scene were found to be “a presumptive match,” according to officials. Those results prompted police to take Williams into custody the following day at 2:08 p.m. at his residence.
Two days later, on March 29, FBI officials told Henrico Police that Williams may have commented two weeks earlier on a YouTube a video referencing the April 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado.
“This is going to be me when everyone comes back to school,” Williams apparently wrote, from an account named “Dark Lord Rises” that included his name and was linked to his personal email address and phone number.
Bremer’s parents said they will turn their attention to the sentencing hearing in April “which will be the only time in the criminal proceeding during which we can convey all that was stolen from us: our beautiful daughter Lucia, her bright smile and funny spirit, her ability to make connections, and her future contributions to our community.
“It will also be an important time for the court to hear about the dangerous tendencies of her killer. We are hopeful that the court will carefully consider these factors and exact a thoughtful and lengthy sentence, a sentence that will confirm that Lucia's murderer will not ever again be a danger to the public.”
