The mastermind of a botched home invasion attempt has admitted aiding the teenager who went rogue and murdered an innocent man in an incident that "breaks the soul".
Holt woman Nicole Williams faced the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday, when she pleaded guilty to charges of attempted aggravated burglary and accessory after the fact to murder.
The charges were laid following the June 2021 murder of Glenn Walewicz, who was shot dead in the doorway of his unit in a case of mistaken identity.
Williams had sent the assailants to steal money and drugs from a different home in the same complex, in Phillip, but the would-be home invaders went to the wrong address.
Her decision to plead guilty, less than two weeks before she was scheduled to stand trial, allows The Canberra Times to reveal her son, Jayden Douglas Williams, 20, was sentenced last week over his involvement.
Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson sentenced Jayden Williams to two years in jail after he pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding and abetting the attempted aggravated burglary.
She backdated the sentence to the date of his arrest, in June 2022, and suspended the remainder of the prison term with immediate effect.
Agreed facts, tendered to the court in the case of Jayden Williams, outline how the murder unfolded.
They show Nicole Williams, who regularly used illicit drugs and supplied them to children, told Gary Taylor, 25, and two children, who cannot be named, to "run through" a Phillip unit.
The intended targets were two known drug-dealers, who owed Nicole Williams money.
According to those facts, Nicole Williams gave a 17-year-old boy a .22 pump-action rifle and promised to give Taylor some of the methamphetamine she expected they would find at the intended targets' home.
She then placed a "crack pipe" in the mouth of a 12-year-old boy, telling him not to worry and to inhale, before sending him out with Taylor and the other juvenile.
Reatile Ncube, then aged 18, drove the trio of would-be home invaders to Phillip, where the 17-year-old would ultimately kill Mr Walewicz, 48, with a single shot to the neck.
Following a year of painstaking investigations, detectives arrested all of the offenders in June 2022.
Nicole Williams was apprehended at Canberra's train station with a one-way ticket to travel interstate.
The arrest occurred a day after police intercepted a phone call, in which she and her son discussed blaming the murder on other people to protect themselves.
Nicole Williams said she would "make one of these other kids" pin the killing on Taylor and the 12-year-old.
"I'm gonna make out like I don't know a damn thing," she said during the phone call.
"Cause as soon as I slip up and say that I was even knowin' of any of it, I'm locked up too."
She has now been locked up for some 14 months, having been remanded in custody since her arrest.
Following the entry of her guilty pleas on Thursday, Justice Louise Taylor vacated her upcoming trial and listed the case to return to court next week for the allocation of a sentencing date.
Sentencing Jayden Williams last week, Justice Loukas-Karlsson said she recognised the "family tragedy" the murder had been for Mr Walewicz's loved ones.
"No parent should have to go through this pain," she said, addressing a victim impact statement authored by Mr Walewicz's mother.
"There are no adequate words for that pain because it breaks the soul.
"The court cannot bring back your son. I wish it could."
Justice Loukas-Karlsson also acknowledged the childhood disadvantage of Jayden Williams, who wrote of his remorse in a letter that also described "thieving" as a normal part of his upbringing around drugs.
The judge urged Jayden Williams to ensure his child's upbringing was not "blighted" like his had been.
"The cycle of intergenerational Indigenous disadvantage must be broken in your family," she said.
"It must be broken. This is on you now. Your child must have better guidance than you did."
Jayden Williams will now be subject to a good behaviour order until February 2025.
Taylor was previously jailed for more than 10 years after pleading guilty to joint commission murder, while Ncube received a mostly suspended prison term for being an accessory.
Charges against the 12-year-old boy were discontinued, while the shooter is scheduled to be sentenced for murder in December.
