I can’t believe it’s been 7 years since Jayson Williams drunkenly offed his limo driver and they still haven’t figured out what to do with him.
Frankly, to me he clearly needs to go to jail. This should have taken about 7 seconds. If you shoot someone in front of 437 Harlem Globetrotters, it shouldn’t take very long before you wind up in jail.
When it first happened, I really wanted to believe that it was some sort of freak accident and that his storybook life shouldn’t be ruined because something weird happened, but as time goes by I think it’s become pretty obvious that I gave him too much of the benefit of the doubt becuase he seemed like such a fun, likable guy on tv and in the press.
What a great life to screw up too. He has one great year, signs a huge long term contract and then almost immediately gets hurt and his career is over. That’s a drag, but he still was lucky enough to earn that contract. Then because of his charm he was pretty much gauranteed to be the second best basketball on air personality to Charles Barkley for the next twenty years or so, which is as good a gig as they come.
I read his autobiography and he talks about how in his early years in the league that he had to overcome a widespread belief that he was too much of a partyer, but now it just seems like he probably has always had a drinking problem. He’s had a few arrests since the limo driver incident. I guess that maybe his further issues could be out of guilt over what he did, but perhaps that just argues even more that he needs to go to jail for a while.
The thing that turned me against him was probably the dog story. If it’s true it shows his love of alcohol, shotguns and death. He’s denied it, but I’m not so sure why the source would lie. I’m sad at what a wasted of a great life Williams’ story has been, but I’m appalled that it’s been 7 years and this nonsense hasn’t been concluded yet.
This is the dog story.
The incident happened after Williams, Schintzius and another friend, Chris Duckery, returned from drinking at the Mountain View Chalet, she said. That is the same restaurant Williams and friends had been at before the Christofi shooting.
Schintzius, in a sworn interview, bet Williams $100 that he could drag Zeus out of the house. After Williams accepted, Schintzius pulled the dog outside by his hind legs, the prosecutor said.
Williams went upstairs and returned with a shotgun. “He blasts one round into the side of the dog, and another into his head, in Schintzius’ words, almost decapitating him,” Errickson told the judge.
Williams then loaded two more rounds into the shotgun, pointed it at Schintzius, and said, “Shinbone, get this (expletive) dog off my porch, or you’re next,” the prosecutor said. Schintzius and Duckery complied, and buried the dog, she said.
A statement issued Wednesday by Williams’ father, E.J. Williams, called Schintzius “unstable” and his story “a blatant lie.”
