BRICK – A township woman facing murder charges in the death of her fiancé has been ordered released from jail so she can stand trial.
Ciara Williams, 27, had turned herself in to authorities after the fatal stabbing of Sept. 29. Police said she had been involved in a heated argument with her fiancé Dennis Power, 35, and stabbed him in the chest and then left him in a parking lot at Ocean Medical Center in Brick.
Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer and Brick Township Police Chief James Riccio reported soon after that Williams had been charged with murder and weapons possession.
Williams had left Power breathing according to police and Hospital staff found him unconscious but breathing. Despite efforts to save him he died shortly afterward.
Authorities searched the Brick Garden Apartment complex as the scene of the crime.
Her attorney, Alton Kenney stated that Williams had acted in self-defense and that she had sustained facial injuries during the fight with Power. The photo taken of her being booked at the Ocean County Jail showed her with bruises and swelling around her eye.
[adrotate banner="278]Kenney and fellow attorney Terrance Turnbach withdrew from the case however citing a potential conflict of interest on Oct. 30 during a court appearance before Judge Wendel Daniels in State Superior Court. They were replaced by Francis Hodgson. Daniels postponed a decision until Friday when he ordered the woman’s release to stand trial.
Willams was the key witness in a trial against her former boyfriend James Fair, of Asbury Park in 2017. Police reported that Fair was a leader in the Bloods gang in Asbury Park.
Fair whose street name was “Doughboy” was on trial with his friend Haneef Walker and Keith German, a former Asbury Park police officer. The three men were facing charges as part of a criminal operation in the city in 2013 and 2014.
Fair received an 82-year sentence in state prison. Williams’ testimony in Fair’s case involved telling jurors that until her relationship with Fair ended in 2014, she had sold drugs and shoplifted for him as well as assisted with several burglaries.
Williams testified that she had witnessed Fair direct his crimes via cell phone calls including giving instructions to two gang members to murder a man in December 2013. Williams said she and Fair were in an Asbury Park based electronics store when he recognized a man there wearing a red hoodie and he called the two Blood members to shoot that man. The plans were called off after police arrived at the store in unmarked vehicles.
She also testified that she could make up to $1,000 a day by stealing electronics and then selling them to a Neptune City pawn shop that sold items online. She was arrested with more then 25 people as part of Operation Dead End in 2014, in which the criminal operation was based on two dead end streets in Asbury Park.
Williams faced racketeering, conspiracy and shoplifting charges and pled guilty in an agreement with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office to cooperate with law enforcement and testify against Fair. She received one year of probation.
