Man pleads guilty to killing Catholic priest who was stabbed in his rectory in Nebraska

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The man accused of fatally stabbing a Catholic priest during a break-in at his home beside the church he served in a small Nebraska town pleaded guilty to murder and other charges Tuesday in the December 2023 killing.

Kierre Williams changed his plea to guilty on murder, burglary and weapons charges during a routine pretrial hearing. He will be sentenced on Nov. 12 to life in prison for killing the Rev. Stephen Gutgsell, 65, in the rectory next door to St. John the Baptist Church in Fort Calhoun. The killing occurred just hours before Gutgsell was scheduled to celebrate Mass.

Washington County prosecutors decided early on in the case not to pursue the death penalty in the case. Investigators struggled to find any connection between Williams and the priest. The priest’s death and another unexplained killing four months earlier had badly shaken the roughly 1,100 residents of the town some eight miles (13 kilometers) north of Omaha near the Missouri River.

The first-degree murder charge Williams pled guilty to calls for a sentence of life in prison without parole when prosecutors don’t pursue the death penalty.

Williams’ attorney didn’t immediately respond to a message from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

On the day of the attack, Gutgsell called 911 before dawn to report that a man had broken into the rectory and was in his kitchen holding a knife. A deputy who arrived at the home minutes later said he found Gutgsell lying near the kitchen, bleeding profusely from stab wounds. Gutgsell was rushed to a hospital in Omaha, where he died.

Williams didn’t have a weapon at the time, but investigators later found a broken knife with a serrated blade lying in blood on the floor of Gutgsell’s bedroom.

Williams has several felony convictions in other states, authorities said. At the time of the killing, he was working in a meatpacking plant in Sioux City, Iowa.