A Memphis woman has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for shooting and killing a Church’s Chicken employee after an argument over a drive-thru order.
Monica Williams, 47, pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder in the death of 48 year old Anitra West, along with a charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office announced the effective 30 year sentence on Monday. Associate Deputy District Attorney Monica Timmerman prosecuted the case.
West was working at the Church’s Chicken on Park Avenue in Orange Mound on the night of July 8, 2024. Just after 9 p.m., Williams pulled into the drive-thru and the two women got into it over a food order. Memphis police said they did not know each other.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the argument escalated when Williams did not want to pay for the food. Before driving off, she yelled at West that she would kill her.
West went outside to cool down and called a friend. They had been talking for a few minutes when she noticed a car pull back into the parking lot. She told her friend it was the same woman with the purple hair she had just argued with. The friend heard a single gunshot, then screaming from other employees.
Officers found West in the parking lot with a gunshot wound to the head. She was rushed to Regional One Hospital and died from her injuries.
The case came together fast once police put out photos of the suspect and the vehicle. The woman who owned the car called investigators the next morning and identified Monica Williams. She told police she had been in the SUV with her 10 year old son when Williams asked if they were hungry. They had coupons, so they went to Church’s and placed two orders at the drive-thru. When the exchange with the worker got tense, the woman said she told Williams to skip one of the orders. Williams pulled up to the window and told the employee they no longer wanted it, and the arguing picked back up from there.
The woman said Williams drove her and her son home afterward and mentioned she was stopping at a store to buy chips. When Williams came back, she never said a word about a shooting. The woman called police after she saw the shooting on the news.
Williams turned herself in and was arrested on July 15, 2024. A Shelby County grand jury indicted her on August 22, 2024 on first-degree murder and convicted felon in possession of a firearm. She was held without bond until the plea that closed the case last week. Court records show she had been sentenced to three years in prison in 2009 for beating and stabbing another woman.
Anitra West was one of six children. Her father, Bruce Stevens, told WMC after her death that his daughter had a personality that could fill a room. Her ex-husband, Loranzo, told Action News 5 that he is a better man because of her, and that what he will miss most is the way she affected everybody she came across.
She was killed at work, over a chicken order, by a customer she had never met before that night.
