Winter Garden Man Gets Life Without Parole for Killing ATV Rider Ja'Keem Williams, Blames Victim in Court

A Winter Garden man who shot and killed Ja'Keem Williams as Williams rode an ATV past an apartment complex in February 2025 was sentenced Tuesday, Nov. 10, to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the maximum sentence allowed. Ralph Hensel stood convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm after pleading guilty, and before the sentence came down he told an Orange County courtroom that the man he killed shared the blame for his own death.

Circuit Judge Gisela Laurent imposed the sentence at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando after a hearing that drew emotional statements from Williams' parents and the mother of his three children, and a pointed rebuke from the prosecutor. The Office of the State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit announced the outcome the same day.

From first-degree murder indictment to guilty plea

Hensel was arrested by Winter Garden police on the day of the shooting, Feb. 20, 2025, and an Orange County grand jury later indicted him on a charge of first-degree murder, finding the killing was premeditated, according to Fox 35 Orlando and WKMG News 6. He was held without bond at the Orange County Jail while the case moved toward trial.

Jury selection in that trial began Monday, Nov. 9, 2026. That same day, according to WKMG, Hensel pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder with a firearm, avoiding a first-degree murder trial. Prosecutors agreed to allow the plea, and the State Attorney's Office said Williams' family was in agreement with the resolution, WKMG reported. In court Monday, Hensel said his lawyers had told him his situation was "a no-win situation."

Hensel had asked for a 25-year prison term, according to Fox 35. The judge instead imposed life without parole. The Tampa Bay Times reported Hensel's age as 59; Fox 35 and WKMG described him as 57 at the time of the shooting.

What prosecutors said happened

Williams, 32, was a father of three. Prosecutors said Hensel had become upset about people riding ATVs through a grassy area at the Bay Pointe Apartments complex on Horizon Street in Winter Garden, according to Fox 35. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented Williams' family, said in February 2025 that Hensel had previously threatened ATV riders at the complex and had called police about them.

Surveillance video shown in court, taken from Hensel's backyard, showed him grilling when an ATV passed his fence, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Hensel, a former property manager, then went inside, retrieved a pistol and walked into the street to wait for Williams to come back around before opening fire. Investigators said the video showed Hensel walking from the leasing office area, moving around a nearby building and appearing to lie in wait before he shot Williams as he rode by, according to WKMG and WFTV.

Williams was struck twice in the back of the head. Police found him dead next to the ATV in the 1000 block of Horizon Street. Witnesses told investigators that Hensel walked toward Williams and shouted before two shots were fired, and that afterward he said "I killed him," according to a police report previously reviewed by WFTV.

When Winter Garden officers arrived, Hensel was waiting for them, with his gun and its unloaded magazine placed on the hood of his car, the Times reported. The Times also reported that there is no evidence of a confrontation between the two men before the shots were fired.

A defendant who blamed the victim

Hensel at first declined to address the court, according to the Times, but sat whispering with his lawyer, Kyle Fletcher, while a Winter Garden police detective and members of Williams' family testified. At one point he could be heard saying, "I'm going to prison anyway."

When he did speak, shackled and in an Orange County Jail jumpsuit, Hensel denied that race played a role. Williams was Black and Hensel is white, and Williams' family has said they believe he may have been targeted because of his race. "There was nothing racist about this," Hensel said, according to the Times. He went on to argue that Williams had been somewhere he should not have been and had come after him, and he asked the court, "When is anybody else going to take responsibility for their part?"

Hensel also told the judge that jail had been a comfort to him and that he had felt more protected there than at any other time in his life, according to the Times and Fox 35.

The prosecutor's response

Assistant State Attorney Frank George told the judge Hensel had shot Williams in "cold blood," approaching him from behind. Describing Hensel's calm demeanor after the shooting, George said Hensel never claimed self-defense, the Times reported.

After Hensel spoke, George said that in all his years prosecuting homicides he did not think he had ever heard such arrogance from an adjudicated murderer. "The arrogance is unbelievable," he told the court. Responding to Hensel's comments about jail, George urged the judge to give him what he described. "Send him there forever," George said, according to the Times.

In a statement announcing the sentence, State Attorney Monique Worrell said the outcome holds Hensel accountable while recognizing the family's lasting loss. "No sentence can bring Ja'Keem back or take away the pain his loved ones will carry for the rest of their lives," Worrell said, according to WFTV. She thanked Winter Garden police and the prosecutors who handled the case.

Williams' family speaks

Williams' children were 7, 6 and 2 at the time of the sentencing, according to Fox 35; the youngest was 11 months old when he was killed. The children's mother held a sign bearing a family photograph and the words "Taken by hate, remembered by love," the Times reported, and asked the court why the man who took Williams' life should have the chance to return to his own family. She told the judge the children had been sentenced to a life without their father.

His father, Tray McNeal, told the court from the witness stand that his son's life mattered and that it should never have ended this way. His mother, Keisha Rolle-McNeal, told Hensel, "You may have taken his life, but you didn't silence his legacy," according to the Times. Many relatives in the gallery wore T-shirts bearing Williams' face and the words "Long Live Joc," a reference to his nickname.

Fox 35 described the hearing as unusually emotional, noting that the judge allowed family members to display photographs and signs as they addressed Hensel. Hensel's remarks drew gasps and angry groans from the family, who celebrated the sentence outside the courthouse afterward, the Times reported.

What's next

Hensel will serve life in prison without the possibility of parole. Because he pleaded guilty, the case that was set for trial this week will not go to a jury. The killing had drawn wide attention in Central Florida after Williams' family retained Crump and publicly called for hate crime charges. The criminal case ended with the second-degree murder conviction and the maximum sentence that charge allowed, the outcome Williams' parents and the mother of his children had asked the judge to impose.