Jim Williams, a wealthy Savannah antiques dealer and preservationist, shot and killed his 21-year-old lover Danny Hansford inside Mercer House in the early hours of May 2, 1981, and then stood trial for murder four times over eight years before an Augusta jury acquitted him in May 1989. The Jim Williams Savannah murder case set a Georgia record for retrials, reached the state Supreme Court three times, and later became the subject of John Berendt’s bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
The Shooting at Mercer House
Hansford’s body was found on the floor of the study at Mercer House, Williams’ Italianate mansion on Monterey Square. Williams told police that Hansford had flown into a rage, threatened him, and fired a gun at him, and that he had shot back in self-defense.1Savannah Magazine. Midnight Marches On
Chief Assistant District Attorney Dep Kirkland reached the scene while the body was still in the study and did not believe the account. He told Williams that night he was under arrest for murder.2Savannah Morning News. Former Prosecutor
What Kirkland thought he saw, and what became the heart of the case, was staging. Prosecutors argued that the position of Hansford’s body and the placement of a chair leg resting on his trousers were inconsistent with the sequence Williams described. Georgia Supreme Court Justice Charles L. Weltner summed up the point in a line quoted often afterward: “Everyone knows a dead man can’t put a chair leg on his trousers.”1Savannah Magazine. Midnight Marches On Kirkland also relied on what he called “cadaveric spasm” evidence to argue that Williams’ version was scientifically impossible.
Williams’ Self-Defense Claim
Because no one else witnessed the shooting, Williams’ defense depended on his own testimony and on painting Hansford as volatile. Williams testified that about a month before the killing, on April 3, 1981, Hansford had destroyed furniture in the house and fired a gun into a bedroom floor during a rage, an incident serious enough that Williams called the police. A Savannah police corporal confirmed at trial that he had investigated the April call.3Justia. Williams v. State (1983)
The prosecution’s counter was pointed: that April incident, they suggested, may itself have been staged as groundwork for the fatal shooting a month later.
Four Trials Over Eight Years
State of Georgia vs. James A. Williams went to trial four times, a state record. Defense attorney Sonny Seiler later estimated the fight cost the defense millions of dollars.4Savannah Magazine. Sonny With a Chance of Midnight
First Trial, 1982
The first trial opened in Savannah in February 1982 before Superior Court Judge George E. Oliver.2Savannah Morning News. Former Prosecutor District Attorney Spencer Lawton Jr. tried the case personally, with Kirkland as co-counsel delivering the closing argument. On February 2, 1982, the jury convicted Williams of murder.5WJCL. Jim Williams Savannah Danny Hansford Murder The Georgia Supreme Court later overturned the verdict.
Second Trial
A second trial, again before Judge Oliver, produced a second conviction. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed it as well.6WJCL. Spencer Lawton Savannah Lawyer Dies
Third Trial, 1987
The third trial, once more presided over by Judge Oliver, ended in a mistrial on June 9, 1987, when the jury could not agree on a verdict.7Savannah Morning News. Today in Georgia History: Third Mistrial in Jim Williams Murder Trail
Fourth Trial and Acquittal, 1989
The fourth trial was moved to Augusta because of pretrial publicity in Savannah, and Superior Court Judge James W. Head presided.2Savannah Morning News. Former Prosecutor In May 1989, the Augusta jury acquitted Williams on all charges.8Savannah Morning News. Today in Georgia History: Jim Williams Acquitted
The Lawyers and What They Thought of the Case
Frank “Sonny” Seiler led Williams’ defense in the final three trials, with Don Samuel as co-counsel.4Savannah Magazine. Sonny With a Chance of Midnight9Super Lawyers. Mister Legal Scholar Seiler said Williams was “very flippant” about the trials and hard to prepare, often refusing to review his earlier testimony, yet “never contradicted himself one time on the stand” across all four proceedings.
Seiler was blunt about what he thought was happening in the Savannah courtrooms. He said the juries “were trying him for being ‘queer,’ not for murder,” calling homosexuality an “unpardonable sin” in the city at the time.4Savannah Magazine. Sonny With a Chance of Midnight In his view, moving the fourth trial to Augusta got the case out from under that atmosphere.
The prosecutors never softened their position. Kirkland left the District Attorney’s office in January 1983 while the first appeal was pending but continued to insist Williams was guilty, later writing: “There’s no doubt in my mind he did it. I think that if he’s tried 100 times, he’ll be convicted 100 times.”2Savannah Morning News. Former Prosecutor He described the eight-year fight as “an eight-year campaign by a defendant to beat a murder rap” backed by “virtually unlimited funds,” and in 2021 published LAWYER GAMES: After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil to lay out his account.1Savannah Magazine. Midnight Marches On
Williams’ Death Months After the Acquittal
On January 14, 1990, about eight months after the Augusta verdict, Williams died at 59 in the study at Mercer House, the same room in which he had shot Hansford nearly nine years earlier.10Savannah Morning News. Jim Williams Center Garden An autopsy attributed the death to pneumonia. Don Samuel called it “tragic and sad that he didn’t get to enjoy his freedom.”11Bluffton Today. 30 Years After Death of Jim Williams
The Book, the Film, and the Musical
John Berendt, a former New York Magazine editor, moved to Savannah in the mid-1980s and used the four trials as the spine of his 1994 nonfiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Alongside the case, the book profiled figures who moved through Williams’ orbit, including the performer known as The Lady Chablis and a voodoo practitioner called Minerva, whom Williams reportedly hired to hex the district attorney.12GPB. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Turns 30 The book spent 216 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and sold more than four million copies.13Goodman Theatre. From Page to Stage: Midnight
Berendt acknowledged that he “cherry-picked” subjects and compressed timelines. Prosecutors objected to how they were portrayed. The book described Lawton as “eloquent and venomous” in court, a characterization his chief assistant David Lock called an “unfair portrayal of Spencer Lawton.”6WJCL. Spencer Lawton Savannah Lawyer Dies Kirkland went further, calling any dramatization of the events “absurd and even obscene.”1Savannah Magazine. Midnight Marches On
Clint Eastwood directed a 1997 film adaptation with Kevin Spacey as Williams, John Cusack as a fictionalized Berendt, and Jude Law as the victim, renamed Billy Hanson. The Lady Chablis played herself; Sonny Seiler appeared as the judge while actor Jack Thompson played Seiler. The film compressed the four trials into a single courtroom sequence and did not recoup its production costs in theatrical release.14TCM. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
A stage musical with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown and a book by Taylor Mac had its world premiere at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre from June 25 through August 11, 2024,15Goodman Theatre. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil with a Broadway transfer announced for 2025.16Playbill. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Will Bow on Broadway
Mercer House itself is now the Mercer Williams House Museum, opened by Williams’ sister Dorothy Kingery after his death and still owned by family members Susan Kingery and Amanda Heath.17Mercer Williams House Museum. About the Mercer Williams House