'Funny, caring, loving': Police seek shooter in death of Willis Williams, lead cook at McCray's BBQ
Law enforcement had reunited Willis Williams with a daughter who had gone missing days before his fatal shooting Jan. 21 in Riviera Beach.
RIVIERA BEACH — Much of Palm Beach County has tasted the work of Willis Williams’ hands. His specialty was ribs, which he cooked for years while manning the grill at McCray’s Backyard BBQ and Seafood in West Palm Beach.
But what the Riviera Beach native cared most about was being the best father to his five children, said Jaquita Williams, one of his four daughters. He was shot and killed Jan. 21, just two days after reuniting with one of his daughters, who had been missing for two weeks.
“He was so funny, caring and loving,” said Jaquita Williams, who last saw him about an hour before he died, laughing and talking in the garden of the home they shared. “He was a great dad. He always did whatever he could to take care of us and protect us and provide for us.”
For subscribers:Riviera Beach, long stymied by division, enters second century with new determination, vision
SunFest Thursdays are outWhy West Palm's waterfront music festival is scaling back to three days
Federal investigation:West Palm-area nursing school one of three targeted in fake diploma fraud probe
Family, friends saw Willis Williams in hours before fatal shooting
Riviera Beach police had not announced an arrest in Williams’ death as of Sunday. The estranged mother of his daughter who went missing, Tyshon Glee, was in the Palm Beach County Jail on Thursday following her arrest in Georgia on a charge of interference with custody in the girl’s disappearance.
The fatal shooting took place at about 3:30 p.m. Jan. 21 outside a grocery store near West 18th Street, northwest of the city marina. Willis Williams died that day at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach. His family and friends held a vigil at the site of the shooting Jan. 22.
Derrick McCray Sr., his longtime friend and the owner of McCray’s, also was with Williams the day he died.
“He had just left me,” McCray said. “We were just in (the restaurant) cooking, and I was in my truck and we were talking. … We always had a comedic moment just about every day. He got off of work, and that was that.”
McCray knew Williams his entire life, as their fathers championed the Riviera Beach civil rights movement efforts side by side in the late 1960s. Williams became the lead cook at McCray’s, where he’d worked since 2006 and which has won national attention for catering events at the Super Bowl over the past two decades. He fell into the position naturally, Derrick McCray said.
McCray said that he gave Williams paid time off from work to focus on finding his 11-year-old daughter, when she went missing Jan. 6. The Palm Beach Post is not naming the girl because she is a minor.
Custody dispute involved law enforcement as far away as Georgia
According to a Palm Beach County School District police report, Williams had sole custody of the girl, with Glee allowed limited supervised contact under a 2018 court order. Glee met the child at her bus stop and drove her away, police said.
School police said they spoke with Glee that night. She said she had driven to Florida to bring her daughter to Georgia after the girl had led her to believe there were problems at home. Police said they told her she could not take the child across state lines without speaking with her father, and that she had to inform authorities that she was with the girl and “that she wanted her taken out of the system.”
On Jan. 8, Willis Williams told police in Georgia the girl had been spotted at a home in Valdosta, 100 miles northwest of Gainesville, according to the report. When officers arrived at the home, they learned Glee had left with the child 15 minutes before.
Law enforcement found the girl Jan. 19 and said she was safe.
“We were doing everything we could to find her,” Jaquita Williams said. “When they called to tell us that she had been found, (my father) was crying, saying, ‘They got my baby!’ We were so happy and hugging each other.”
Glee was extradited to Palm Beach County on Monday. At a hearing Tuesday, Circuit Judge Kirk Volker set Glee's bail at $10,000, and she is due back in court Feb. 22. The Palm Beach County Public Defender's Office is representing Glee. As a policy, it does not comment on open cases.
“He was like a little brother to me,” McCray said. “The thing that is most devastating to me is that he got his life taken from him while trying to be a great father. He was not a perfect guy, but one thing that he was getting right was taking care of his kids.”
Maya Washburn is a reporter for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida network. Reach her at mwashburn@gannett.com Support local journalism: Subscribe today.