The hulking “monster” who went on a stabbing rampage in Queens last year was sentenced to 25 years to life for killing an elderly man and stabbing the victim’s wife and another woman.
David Williams left Joan Purcell “overwhelmed with pain” when he killed her husband and stabbed her in January 2009.’
“The emptiness is most painful at night. I always felt safe when John was here,” she said at Williams’ sentencing at Queens Supreme Court yesterday. “I could go on and on but the pain is too great.”
Her daughter Joan Ram wept and shook as she addressed Williams.
“I don’t want to waste this opportunity with hateful words,” she said. You’re not worth the effort.”
Ram described her father as a devoted father and grandfather and a thoughtful friend and neighbor.
And, she said, a surveillance video that captured her parents just before Williams’ attack shows her father at his uxorious best.
“You see then coming out of the building, holding hands and [Purcell] turning to fix her jacket to make sure she’s warm,” Ram said.
Williams, who also stabbed Juhn Fook as he ran amok, pleaded guilty to murder and two counts of assault in April.
He told State Supreme Court Justice Gregory Lasak that he had no history of mental problems or prescribed psychotropics before the assault and apologized to his victims, his family and his community.
“Something went terribly wrong that I cannot account for,” Williams said. “Whatever sentence I am given, I hope that it should start to serve as a healing process for the victims.”
He was sentenced to 25 years to life on the murder count and 25 years on each of the assault counts which will run concurrently to the longer stretch.