MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A 20-year-old woman is facing a second-degree murder charge after Miami Beach police said she beat a woman to death for grabbing another woman’s necklace near Ocean Drive.
Zaria Liana Williams was scheduled to appear in Miami-Dade court on Monday to face an upgraded charge following the victim’s death; police initially arrested Williams on an aggravated battery charge early Thursday morning, hours after the incident.
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According to an arrest report, police said the “chaotic” incident happened just before 11 p.m. Wednesday at Fifth Street and Ocean Drive.
Police said Williams, the victim and another woman were sitting at the intersection when the victim “snatched” the other woman’s necklace.
The report states that the victim, who wasn’t publicly identified by police, was acting in an “erratic” manner and Williams became upset and went after the victim.
It appears the victim never actually took the necklace; according to the report, the other woman “later found it inside of the sports top she was wearing.”
Nevertheless, police said Williams, identified by witnesses as the aggressor, punched the woman multiple times.
The arrest report states that surveillance and cellphone video shows Williams punching the woman seven times after she had become unresponsive.
Police said a man eventually intervened and pushed Williams off as she pinned the victim down, leading her to walk away.
The report states that medics took the victim to Mount Sinai Hospital, where a doctor told investigators Thursday that the woman suffered “fractured ribs, a fractured sternum, a catastrophic brain bleed and she was intubated and not breathing on her own.”
Two days later, doctors declared the woman brain dead with no chance of recovery.
Williams, who is homeless, had been booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $1 million bond on the aggravated battery charge.
Her bond for the second-degree murder charge was listed in jail records as “to be set.”