Man ‘randomly’ attacked Sunday was homeless, sleeping

A 73-year-old homeless man was attacked while he was asleep in a sleeping bag Sunday afternoon in Columbia.

The attacked happened just before 2 p.m. while the victim was under the Range Line Street bridge over the Bear Creek Trail in Columbia. The probable cause statement said the man went inside Casey’s General Store on Range Line Street with multiple stab wounds. He was then taken to the hospital in critical condition.

The suspect, Jessie R. WIlliams, 28, of Columbia, shot the victim with a paintball gun, punched him in the face and then stabbed him, according to the statement. The Columbia Police Department in the statement said the attack was random because Williams and the homeless man do not know each other.

The CPD’s K-9 unit tracked the scent from a black coat left at the scene. The coat had multiple stains that officers believed to be blood and paint similar to the color of paint balls the victim was shot with, according to the statement.

Inside the coat officers found a room key card to the Welcome Inn and an American Express card with Williams’ name, the statement said. Officers got surveillance video from a store where the card was used to buy paintballs and noticed a man that fit the description of the assailant.

Officers tracked Williams down at the Welcome Inn on Providence Road on Monday and found him locked in a bathroom inside his motel room.

Prosecutors charged Williams with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. He remained in the Boone County Jail without bond Wednesday afternoon. No lawyer was listed for Williams in online court records.

Jim Jantz, a Columbia’s homeless shelter operations coordinator said violent attacks on elderly is not out of the ordinary. He remembers a homeless person who was sleeping in a Columbia park when someone tried lighting them on fire.

“You’re going to be safer sleeping within four walls and having a lock on your door,” Jantz said. “Just being out in the open you’re more vulnerable.”

Jantz helps operate Room at the Inn, where homeless can find a warm and safe place to sleep during the winter months. He said they use metal detectors to ensure weapons don’t get inside the shelter.

“There’s a physical safety of being out in the cold, but then there’s the safety of not being attacked,” Jantz said.