The original reckless homicide case ended with a lesser conviction for negligent handling of a dangerous weapon.
MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee teenager who shot and killed his father during a family confrontation will serve probation instead of prison after pleading guilty to a reduced homicide charge, according to court records and local reports.
The case centered on a volatile encounter inside a north side apartment on July 2, 2025. Corey D. Williams, who was 18 at the time, had originally been charged with second-degree reckless homicide in the death of his 47-year-old father, Corey Williams Sr. By the time the case reached sentencing in February 2026, prosecutors had accepted a plea to homicide by negligent handling of a dangerous weapon, cutting the charge to a less serious felony and reshaping the question from reckless killing to criminally negligent gun use.
Police were called to the apartment near West Atkinson Avenue that afternoon after a frantic 911 report that a son had shot his father. Officers arrived to find Williams Sr. on the floor with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators said the defendant had gone to the apartment with his mother to pick up younger siblings after his father had forced him out of the home about two weeks earlier. What began as a family handoff turned into an argument between the adults. According to the criminal complaint, the son stepped in, the father grabbed him by the collar while holding one gun, and the son pulled out a separate 9 mm handgun and fired several shots.
That account gave prosecutors a difficult but not simple case. The number of shots and the father’s wounds initially supported the reckless homicide count. But the defense had a fact it could press hard if the case went to trial: the older Williams was said to have his own gun in hand during the confrontation. That detail opened the door to arguments about fear, chaos and split-second decision-making, even if it did not amount to a full legal justification. The eventual plea suggests both sides saw risk in asking jurors to sort out a family fight that escalated almost instantly and ended in gunfire with relatives present.
The setting made the case especially painful. This was not a street dispute between strangers or a long-running criminal feud. It was a domestic confrontation involving parents, children and a recent breakdown in the household. Public reports said Williams had been removed from the home shortly before the shooting, which gave the encounter a backdrop of family strain and unresolved anger. The younger siblings were part of the reason the adults were together that day, and the shooting happened in front of family members. Those facts likely stayed in the foreground even as the legal charge narrowed.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Swanson sentenced Williams to a prison term of five to eight years, then stayed that sentence and ordered five years of probation. That means he will remain out of prison unless he violates probation and the stay is lifted. The outcome gave the prosecution a homicide conviction while avoiding a trial, and it gave the defense a resolution far short of a prison commitment. No public report described a further contested hearing over intent once the plea was in place. The case is now resolved at the trial-court level unless Williams later violates supervision or seeks review.
Williams is now serving probation under a stayed sentence in Milwaukee County. The next formal milestone would come only if he violates those terms or files a later challenge to the conviction.
Author note: Last updated March 15, 2026.