LEXINGTON - Angela Williams is either a negligent mother and aunt who let six children die in a 2002 mobile home fire or she's a person overwhelmed with grief at an accident over which she had no control.
Attorneys painted those two different pictures of the defendant Williams during the first day of her retrial Wednesday in Holmes Circuit Court.
Angela Williams' first trial ended in a hung jury in October 2004. She was charged with six counts of manslaughter by culpable negligence.
Testimony in the trial continued today.
On Wednesday, prosecutors told a jury of 12 women and two men that Williams took the children to an unsafe location and left them unattended while she went to a club.
Defense attorney Ed Blackmon countered by saying Williams did all she could to help the children, but "something beyond her control intervened."
Prosecutors have claimed the fire started because of lighted candles, but Blackmon took issue with this.
He said investigators found candles in the mobile home, but they weren't in the area where the fire started. The attorney said state investigators said they don't know the fire's source.
Those who died in the blaze were Williams' children, Samantha Williams, 8; Sammie Earl Williams Jr., 5; and Aailyah Williams, 3; and her sister Carolyn Williams' children, Anita Williams, 12; Latonya Banks, 10; and Tonisha Williams, 8. All died of smoke inhalation.
Williams' daughter, Takalay, who was 4 months old at the time of the fire, was the only one who survived.
Wilton McNair, the assistant district attorney, said Williams "flat-out lied" and gave inconsistent accounts of the incident in separate interviews with Sammie Stuart and Dedrick McBeth, two representatives of the Department of Human Services.
Stuart and McBeth testified Wednesday.
Stuart testified that Williams told her on the day before the fire, she had custody of all seven children from the time they got out of school.
Williams told Stuart they first went to her father's house in Mileston, where she was living until she finalized the preparations for moving into the Tchula mobile home.
Then, Williams she took the children to the mobile home, where they played games and later went to sleep.
Later, Williams told Stuart, she awoke and smelled smoke. She couldn't get to the children because fire had engulfed the living room in the middle of the home and they were on the other side.
She left the home and tried to get help but was only able to save the 4-month-old child, according to Stuart's testimony. Stuart said Williams was "adamant" that she never left the children that night.
Stuart also testified that Williams said utilities had been turned on the day before the fire, but that the woman couldn't produce any receipts.
Williams claimed she didn't use candles, Stuart said, but "touch lights."
McBeth, who now works in Hattiesburg, said Williams gave him a different account two days after she spoke to Stuart. He testified that Williams told him she met her sister at a local convenience store while buying food for the children.
Williams took her nieces home with her. After they finished playing at the mobile home, the children said they were hungry, McBeth said. The social worker told the court that Williams told him she went to a club, Lawful Occasion, to buy hamburgers for the children.
McBeth testified that while Williams was there, a man told her the mobile home was on fire and her brother and a nephew, who were at the club, took her home.
