Grand jury indicts two suspects in the rape, murder of 5-year-old Columbus girl
Editor’s note: This story includes reporting on a graphic, violent crime.
A Russell County grand jury has indicted two suspects in the abduction, rape and strangling of Kamarie Holland, the 5-year-old Columbus girl whose mother is accused of trafficking her.
Authorities frantically searching for the missing girl found her slain Dec. 13, the same day they arrested accused killer Jeremy Tremaine Williams. They later charged Kamarie’s mother Kristy Siple, also known as Kristy Hoskins, on related allegations.
The grand jury indictments set the stage for a possible trial in Russell County Circuit Court, where Judge David Johnson has issued a gag order that prohibits authorities from disclosing details of the case. The next step in the case is arraignment, when the defendants face the judge for a formal reading of the charges.
The indictments mostly mirror charges Williams and Siple already faced, with at least one addition: Both were indicted for conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. That count accuses Williams of agreeing to pay Siple “for the use of her daughter.”
Williams was indicted also for human trafficking, abusing a corpse and producing child pornography, plus capital murder for killing someone younger than 14, and three more counts of capital murder for causing a death in the course of kidnapping, rape and sodomy.
If convicted, Williams faces execution.
Siple, 35, was indicted also on charges of sex trafficking and three counts of felony murder based on rape, sodomy and first-degree kidnapping. She faces life in prison, if convicted.
The court filings include some new details of the case: They allege Siple trafficked her daughter to Williams in exchange for “a sum of U.S. currency.”
Williams’ indictments for abusing a corpse and producing child pornography say he recorded video of himself sexually abusing the little girl’s body “after having caused her death by strangulation.”
Siple and Williams were indicted Feb. 18, but the indictments were not filed in the court record until Monday, when they became public.
“It troubles us, the information that we have found out,” Russell County Chief Assistant District Attorney Rick Chancey told reporters after a Jan. 12 court hearing for Williams. “We will be ready for trial when it gets there, and get to the truth and the bottom of this as soon as we can.” The case is one of about 20 murder cases and 10 capital cases pending in Russell County, he said then.
On Monday, Chancey said the county has about two years’ worth of capital murder cases still awaiting trial because of delays caused by COVID-19 restrictions.
Siple reported the girl missing from her 1607 Bowman St. home in Columbus the morning of Dec. 13, said Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor. The girl’s body was found around 11 o’clock that night at a vacant house Williams once occupied on 15th Avenue in Phenix City, next to West End Cemetery.
Kamarie had been asphyxiated and sexually assaulted, Taylor said.
Investigators arrested Williams that night at the Bamboo Motel on Opelika Road in Phenix City, but they did not charge the child’s mother until Dec. 28, after further investigation.
