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Sister of murdered Garden City woman on a mission to keep murderer behind bars

Angie Haflich
/
High Plains Public Radio

The sister of a Garden City woman who was brutally murdered 31 years ago is in Garden City collecting signatures for a petition protesting the early release of the man convicted of killing the woman.

As the Garden City Telegram reported in Aug. 2015, 21-year-old Lora Beth Williamson was murdered in a cornfield five miles outside of Garden City on Aug. 17, 1986.

Vivian Van Vleet was the lead investigator on the case for the Finney County Sheriff’s Office at the time. She told the Telegram that after refusing Gonzales’ sexual advances, Williamson got out of his car at Pivot Road at the corn field and tried to run, but Gonzales caught her, dragged her toward his car and then cut several of her arteries, causing her to bleed to death. Gonzales then had sex with Williamson’s dead body.

Gonzales was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in January 1988 for attempted rape and murder.

He is eligible for parole in September, but not if Williamson’s older sister, Anita Laird of Hoisington, has anything to do with it.

“I gotta do what I gotta do. This is my path,” she said. “This is what I have to do.”

Laird was in Garden City Thursday, collecting signatures for a petition that protests Gonzales’ early release and urges the Kansas Parole Board to keep him in prison for the maximum time.

Sandy Mott, Garden City, stopped by to sign the petition.

“I’m going to sign it because I want the guy kept in prison,”Mott said. “It was slaughter, what he did to her.”

A copy of the petition Laird provided High Plains Public Radio described in gruesome detail how Williamson was murdered - that Gonzales stabbed her 17 times and that he slit her throat. 

“I know it’s graphic,” Laird said. “But it’s what happened and we’ve got to remember.”

Laird is collecting signatures for the petition from Thursday through Saturday in the 400 block of North Main Street, near the State Theater in Garden City. 

According to the Kansas Department of Corrections, Gonzales has committed numerous violations since 1996, including several instances of fighting, theft and possession of dangerous contraband. 

According to the Telegram, the television show, "On the Case with Paula Zahn" produced a show about the case in Aug. 2015.