The ex-husband of a Fort Campbell soldier, whose body was found months after she went missing in 2016, reportedly admitted in a Fort Campbell hearing Wednesday that he had his estranged wife, Shadow McClaine, killed and helped hide her body.
According to the Leaf-Chronicle, Sergeant James Williams-McCray had appeared in court in January and asked that his death penalty trial be moved from Fort Campbell. Wednesday’s hearing was expected to be a continuation of that and other motions. However, Williams-McCray entered a guilty plea to premeditated murder in exchange for the judge taking the death penalty off the table.
In addition, the newspaper reports Williams-McCray pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit murder, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Williams-McCray and former Specialist Charles Robinson III were both charged with murder in the death of Private 1st Class McClaine, who went missing around September 2, 2016. Her car was found in Nashville eleven days later and her skeletal remains were found off Interstate 24 in Robertson County in January 2017.
Robinson reportedly pleaded guilty to murder in September 2017 and testified by telephone at Williams-McCray’s second preliminary hearing in March 2018.
