NEW YORK – A sentence of 17 years-to-life in prison and 5 years of post-release supervision was given to the driver of a car that killed a nun and injured four people in Harlem following an early-morning robbery spree in June 2010. On May 8, Dyson Williams, 22, pled guilty in New York State Supreme Court to the top charges in the indictment, murder in the second degree, robbery in the first degree, and assault in the first degree. Co-defendant William Robbins, 20, pled guilty on May 29, 2012, to robbery in the first degree. Robbins was sentenced on June 21, to 15 years in prison. 

“The defendants tore a path of violence through the Harlem community,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.,. “Their robbery spree culminated in the senseless death of Sister Mary Celine Graham, a beloved member of her religious order and her neighborhood. Additional victims were also seriously injured. The sentences imposed on these two defendants hold them accountable for the tragic aftermath of their reckless actions.”

According to the defendants’ guilty pleas Williams and Robbins executed several armed robberies in Northern Manhattan centering on West 123rd Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, stealing from five separate victims. Police officers pulled over the car that the defendants were driving near West 142nd Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. A police officer ordered Robbins, who was seated in the driver’s seat, out of the car. After Robbins exited the car, Williams moved to the driver’s seat and drove away. Minutes later, the car struck another vehicle and a group of pedestrians at the intersection of West 122nd Street and Lenox Avenue. Four people sustained injuries as a result of that collision. The collision also resulted in the death of Sister Mary Celine Graham of the Franciscan Handmaids of Mary religious order.