- March 12, 2025
They stepped forward to address the court one by one. William Carson Merrill’s sister. His property manager. His wife’s best friend. His mother, his father, his uncle. A handful of friends.
More than a dozen of them came forward, and their testimonies were much the same: Merrill is a good man, a family man, a man in love with his wife, they said. What happened Feb. 21 at his home on Covington Lane was an accident, nothing more.
That was the day Merrill shot and killed his wife, Stefanie Merrill, while she was giving their 3-year-old daughter a bath. He’d shined the gun’s laser light on her chest, remarking on how bright it was, and pulled the trigger.
Merrill received a 25-year sentence for manslaughter, a crime that he called an accident.
He didn’t think the gun would fire, he said. He never left it loaded.
Stefanie Merrill was pronounced dead on the scene. Earlier this month, Merrill pled no contest to charges of manslaughter.
Circuit Judge Raul Zambrano sentenced Merrill before a packed courtroom.
“Clearly, this was a preventable and avoidable accident,” Zambrano said. “Your conduct is tantamount to nothing less than reckless behavior.”
Merrill, a convicted felon, was not allowed to own firearms. When police searched his house after the shooting, they found more than 20 of them within the residence.
“You had quite an arsenal in your home,” Zambrano said. “And as if that wasn’t enough, you violated probably one of the most basic tenants of firearms ownership. … You pointed one at the person you claimed to love most, and you pulled the trigger, and you took her life.”
Merrill’s attorney, Brett C. Kocijan, said he has never seen a client so consumed with grief and remorse over his actions.
“I ask that the court consider departing from its statutory guidelines,” he said. “The time (Merrill) has done so far has been a severe punishment already.”
His shoulders shaking and his voice severed with sobs, Merrill spoke at his sentencing hearing, asking that the court show mercy on him. It’s what his wife would have wanted, he said. She wouldn’t want their children to grow up without their father.
“Stefanie is my wife, who I love like I’ve never loved anyone,” he said. “She’s my baby, who I will miss every day for the rest of my life. … Stefanie is the part of me that I was always lacking.”
He turned and faced Thomas and Marilyn Canady, Stefanie Merrill’s parents, while he spoke, his face contorted as he cried.
“Mr. and Mrs. Canady, I’m sorry,” he said. “It rips me apart inside that I caused this much pain. This was an accident. I would never want you to live without Stefanie, nor do I want to live without Stefanie, nor do I want our kids to grow up without their father.”
Marilyn Canady wrote a letter to the court about the loss of their daughter, which was read aloud during the hearing and expressed no sympathy for Merrill.
She said she and her husband thought their daughter stayed with an abusive husband out of fear for her life, referring to a domestic battery incident between the two in 2007, in which police were involved.
Thomas Canady Jr. read a similar letter at the hearing, saying he’s long known Merrill to be reckless, impulsive and a bully to others and to his wife.
“I can’t tell you how many times I talked to her about the abuse and assault she suffered from her husband,” he said.
And now, Thomas Canady Jr. said, Merrill’s children were left to suffer. He said he’s heard his nephew say things like, “I want to get a gun and shoot myself so I can be with my mom.”
“As a soldier in the army, I learned that you take a gun and point it at a target, you take aim, and then fire,” Thomas Canady Jr. said. “That’s exactly what happened. No one goes through these motions without the subconscious intent to do harm to another.”
Despite the witnesses who insisted Merrill acted foolishly, though without intent, he received a sentence close to the maximum 30 years allowed by law.
“(Your) conduct, whether an accident, a mistake, or whatever it may be, comes with tremendous ramifications,” Zambrano said. “We don’t blame people here for their mistakes; we just expect them to pay for them. And today you will begin paying for your mistakes.”
