Murder of the Namesake Son
14th February 2023 · 0 Comments
By Allen Johnson
Contributing Writer
The murderous gunfire that killed 23-year-old Ryan Williams Jr. earlier this month continues to evoke expressions of shock, numbness and disbelief citywide.
Williams was the father of a 4-year-old girl, an aspiring businessman, and namesake of Ryan Williams Sr., a popular, volunteer sports coach honored by the city in 2019, for mentoring hundreds of young student athletes citywide.
Around 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 4, Williams Jr. was fatally wounded from multiple gunshots. Williams was found inside a car that crashed at Clover Street and Franklin Avenue in the Gentilly Terrace neighborhood, police said. There were no suspects or motives reported by press time.
If public reaction to the murder of Williams Jr. has any impact on the city’s seemingly intractable violence, it may be because of his exemplary, yet ordinary young life. Following are highlights of interviews with three people who knew him, a retired New Orleans Police lieutenant, a former high school football coach, and the co-owner of a Seventh Ward restaurant where Williams worked as a youngster.
‘A Beautiful Soul’
Cynthia Swain is a former executive for the Port of New Orleans. Swain also retired as a lieutenant from the New Orleans Police Department in 1994, which remains the city’s deadliest year in its recorded history with 424 murders.
In 2011, this reporter wrote, “Life Coach,” a profile of Williams Sr. for New Orleans Magazine that charted the native son’s rise from orphan of violence to responsible parent.
In addition to being a volunteer coach and mentor for student athletes citywide, the elder Ryan was then a top salesman for Cox Cable, a first-time homeowner, and a single father of three boys, including “Little Ryan,” then 12.
Ryan Sr. was orphaned by violence when his mother and father were both murdered in separate incidents in New Orleans. He and his siblings grew up in foster homes.
As a police lieutenant, Swain became Ryan Sr.’s “Godmother” and one of an unusual network of mentors, including nuns, cops, civil rights attorney Mary Howell, and the late investigative reporter Ron Ridenhour.
In 1993, Williams and his fellow foster child and adopted brother Dominic Johnson moved into the Mid-City home of Howell and Ridenhour. Howell became Williams’ legal guardian. Both teens flourished. The foster brothers played on the Warren Easton High School football team where Ryan Sr. excelled as a receiver and top student athlete.
On Friday nights, the civil rights lawyer, the investigative reporter, the nuns and NOPD cops who knew Ryan Sr. from his summer job at the First District police station, all sat on the Eagles’ side of the field. Together, they formed an improbable, only-in-New Orleans cheering section for Ryan Sr. and his foster brother, Dominic who was murdered in 2000.
Lt. Swain later became “Auntie,” to Ryan Sr.’s three boys, Ryan Jr., Jalen, and Jaden.
“I have a picture when I was holding Little Ryan; he was just 2 days-old,” she said, quietly.
As a boy, he was well-mannered, thoughtful and family-oriented. He never forgot Mother’s Day. Around age 6, he began helping “Big Ryan” on contracted repair jobs, retrieving tools, and helping with electrical installations.
He was “very industrious.” Ryan Jr. looked after his younger brothers, enjoyed sports, and particularly loved attending Pelicans basketball games. He grew up to become a kind, loving man with a sense of humor, who “never met a stranger.”
As teenagers, Ryan Jr., his brothers, and their friends distinguished themselves by their polite and enviable conduct at family restaurants. “We would go to dinner at TGI Friday’s restaurant and I had a rule – NO CELL PHONES AT THE TABLE!” With a laugh she recalled how the boys would “rat each other out!”
In recent years, Little Ryan was enthusiastic about going into business for himself based on his experience transporting veterinary medicines to diagnostic centers. “He was a beautiful soul,” Swain says. “He loved life. He knew there were dangers in the street, but he was not of the street.”
He doted over his daughter, Rayn, 4. “That’s the saddest thing – she’ll never know how much her father loved her.”
From her home in Texas, Swain says she doesn’t see any “significant action” to stop the nation-leading murder rate in New Orleans. “It’s not going to come from legislation,” she says. “Until you make young people feel valued and educated, it’s not going to change.” People who want to make a difference should volunteer time or money to reading and tutoring programs. “These kids today need someone to sit with them – even if they are not low-performing.”
‘A Kick in the Chest’
Maurice Gernhauser, 72, has coached high school athletics in the metro New Orleans area for more than 40 years. He was Ryan Jr.’s football coach at Ecole Classique (2013-2017), a small, private school in suburban Metairie.
“He came in as a short, chubby guy, but he was such a pleasant kid. He turned into a fine young man.”
In 2016, the last year of football at the school, Ryan was named the Spartans’ Most Valuable Player. He also received awards for best defensive player and best lineman in his positions as defensive linebacker and offensive guard. In his MVP year, Ryan Jr. led the defense with 58 tackles over a six-game schedule, Gernhauser, proudly reports. The Spartans owed their short schedule to a lack of players, only 16 on the entire roster. “We had fewer kids on the sideline than on the field.
Some didn’t come off the field unless we had timeouts. “Young Ryan got plenty of field time playing football, as well as basketball and baseball. “He was a big fish in a little pond,” Coach Gernhauser recalled.
Ryan’s last football game at Ecole was memorable as team tradition was to give a senior lineman a chance to score a touchdown.
“We gave it to Ryan. He made a touchdown.” Local veteran sportscaster Ed Daniels of WGNO-TV and a camera crew captured Ryan’s big score for a Friday night report on high school football, the coach said.
Gernhauser told The Louisiana Weekly that he was preparing to teach an American history class at Ecole Classique when he heard the news of young Ryan’s murder. “It was like someone kicked me in the chest,” his voice filled with emotion. He has lost students to car crashes or illness. He’s heard inner-city coaches talk about the tragedy of losing a student to gun violence. “I never had to deal with anything like this. Never gun violence. It rips your heart out. I just want to know why? Why?”
At press time, Coach Gernhauser was making arrangements to provide Little Ryan’s father with his son’s Ecole Classique football jersey – Number 62.
‘Loved by Everybody’
Alexis Ruiz and husband Jordan Ruiz, own and operate the Munch Factory, a restaurant at the Joseph M. Bartholomew Golf Course in Gentilly, near the Lakefront. Mrs. Ruiz recalls that the Munch Factory, then on Franklin Avenue, was when Little Ryan, about age 12, made it known he wanted to work in restaurants (like his dad did as a young man.) In the following years, he wiped down tables, washed dishes, served gumbo, and even played with the couple’s young son.
‘He didn’t like to cook very much.’
But by the time he was 15, Ryan knew what had to be done in a restaurant. Mrs. Ruiz said she told the other employees, “If he corrects you, he knows what he’s talking about.”
“We have had many employees over the years,” she says. “We witnessed first-hand his work ethic and most grown-ups didn’t have it.”
In other ways, he was a typical teenager. He would save up his earnings to buy video games for his brothers.
Ryan celebrated his 14th birthday with a party at the restaurant, she recalls. At one point during the celebration, the diligent teen began to bus the table. “We told him he had to sit down – it was his birthday!”
On another occasion, the restaurant closed for a private party for singer Beyonce and husband Jay-Z, who were in New Orleans on tour. The famous couple posed for pictures with the restaurant staff, Mrs. Ruiz recalled.
“Ryan squeezed himself in between me and Beyonce!” she laughed.
The restaurant owners were with young Ryan the week that he learned he was going to be a father. Now, the couple plans to attend his funeral and serve the repast to fellow mourners at the repast.
Like Ryan Jr.’s Auntie Swain and Coach Gernhauser, Mrs. Ruiz repeatedly expresses shock and disbelief over his murder: “This was a young man who was loved by everybody!”
Anyone with information on the murder of Ryan Williams Jr. is asked to contact NOPD Homicide Detective Matthew Riffle at 504-658-5300 or to anonymously call Crimestoppers of Greater New Orleans at 504-822-1111 or toll-free at 1-877-903-STOP.
