The Los Angeles gang member who killed the half-sister of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams was allowed to cop a plea to manslaughter yesterday. The sisters, both who withdrew from a Miami tournament last week siting injuries, did not appear at the proceedings.
Robert Maxfield, 25, fired an AK-47 assault rifle at the victim's sports utility vehicle shortly before midnight on September 14, 2003, killing Yetunde Price as she and her boyfriend drove through Compton. The boyfriend, Rolland Wormley, was driving but was uninjured. Maxfield claimed he believed he was being fired upon when he shot Yetunde in the gang-infested neighborhood.
Deputy DA Hoon Chun said two juries couldn't reach a verdict on murder because Maxfield could have believed gunfire was coming from the direction of Price's car. "If somebody shoots at a car, believing even wrongly that the car is a threat to them, they're entitled to a verdict of voluntary manslaughter."
The killer, who pleaded no contest to the lesser charge, could be out on parole in eight years. He's to be sentenced April 6.
The father of the tennis stars, Richard Williams, was hard pressed to find any consolation in the outcome. "There's nothing we can do," he said. "The damage has already been done . . . As a parent, to lose someone, you'd trade the whole world to see your daughter again, to say hello to her again."
The Williams sister was 31 and a divorced mother of three when she was shot in the head outside a suspected Crips drug house, not far from the courts where Serena and Venus learned to play tennis.
