Friend may know reason behind attack

Tamika Pennamon wanted to hear her best friend's voice one last time.

So she called the phone number she normally dialed at least three times a day - and got the same answering machine message that she's heard dozens of times before.

"I called her this morning out of daily routine. I wanted to hear her voice," Pennamon said yesterday about Tamara Williams, who was brutally murdered Tuesday morning by her live-in boyfriend. "I left her a message. I told her she was in a better place."

A college senior who lost her best friend, Pennamon has hardly been able to function in the past two days, vomiting when she pictures the horrific murder scene.

"She's my angel. I miss her so much that I have to stop thinking about her," Pennamon said. "The only thing I am thinking about is the time we had together - when I used to babysit for her or when we would go to the mall together."

At Williams' funeral on Saturday, Pennamon will remove the "21" charm she wears around her neck and place it on her best friend. It will be her birthday present to Williams, who would have celebrated her 21st birthday on Monday.

A group of friends will place a bouquet of maize and blue flowers on the casket - a symbol of Williams' love for her University.

Pennamon hopes the University will give the LSA senior a posthumous degree. That way, her 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Kiera, will have another memento of her mother.

"I think that would be so wonderful. Then Kiera could have that," Pennamon said. "She was so close to graduating."

For Pennamon, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the murder is the many unanswered questions.

"This is a mystery, a damn mystery. And you keep asking 'Why?,'" she said.

It doesn't help that she continues to hear different versions of the story through the media and from neighbors in the Northwood apartment complex.

Pennamon heard yesterday that as Kevin Nelson stabbed Williams, he screamed: "She won't have me. And I love her" - a statement that Pennamon believes may answer questions about Nelson's motive.

"I believe it was about sex. We would talk and she would say that he wanted to do something and she wouldn't," Pennamon said. "She said, 'He would get mad, but I would be tired and not feel like it.'

"I don't know if maybe that came up again," she said.

And even if the police investigation discovers a motive and comes up with a conclusive description of the murder, it still won't bring back the bright student that Pennamon wishes everyone could have known.

"I just wish that it didn't have to come to this," she said. "And I wish that the people who are now so interested in her would have known her as a person, as an incredible friend."

Meanwhile, the now-eerie message on Williams' answering machine will continue to ring in Pennamon's ears: "Hi ... You know who is not able to answer the phone. But at the beep, I know you know what to do. Have a nice day."

09-25-97