The Murder of Jason Williams

The sound of an argument carried down the hallway of a central Las Vegas home. It was around two in the afternoon on September 2, 2023, when Juan and his family heard his roommate, 46-year-old Danelle Mask, yell, “I’m going to kill you,” and 59-year-old Jason Williams shout back, “Do it.”

Juan knew it was best to take his kids and leave the house immediately. An hour or so later, Jason would be found slumped and bleeding on the porch of that same home, a single stab wound to his chest.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To listen ad free, visit sinspod dot com slash subscribe
starting at two ninety nine a month. You'll also get
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Speaker 2 (00:13):
The sound of an argument carried down the hallway of
a central Las Vegas home. It was around two in
the afternoon on September second, twenty twenty three, when Juan
and his family heard his roommate, forty six year old
Danielle mask yell I'm going to kill you and fifty
nine year old Jason Williams shout back.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Do it. Wan knew it was best to take his
kids and leave the house immediately. An hour or so later,
Jason would be found slumped and bleeding on the porch
of that same home with a single stab wound to
his chest.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas
true crime podcast where we focus on cases that deal
with domestic violence, as well as missing persons and onsolf cases.
I'm your host Sean.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
And I'm your co host John.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
We're coming to the end of season two and we
just wanted to take a minute and thank all of
you who have supported us on this journey nearly one
hundred unique episodes, multiple collaborations, and more than one hundred
and thirty five thousand downloads, and we couldn't have done
it without you, so thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, thank you so much for supporting the show. And
a special shout out to Marlene from Brooklyn and all
our friends locally and around the world who listen and subscribe.
We really do appreciate you all. This week, we have
a case to share with you that is not something
we've covered on the podcast before. It's the story of
a man who endured domestic violence and was murdered by
his girlfriend. We've covered the murders of men a few

(01:42):
times over the past two years, but several of them
were stories of self defense, and others were men who
were killed by someone other than their partners or ex partners.
Today we're telling the story of Jason Williams, a man
whose relationship with Danielle Mask was marked by repeated escalating violence.
Despite multiple arrests, protect orders and obvious red flags, the

(02:02):
cycle was never broken. It ended the way it too
often does, with one partner dead. Let's start with what
we know about the two of them.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Jason Williams, was fifty nine years old at the time
of his death. He and Danielle had been in a
relationship for about three years, sharing a home near Decatur
Boulevard and Sahara Avenue with two other roommates. I would
describe their relationship as volatile. There were several police records
showing repeated domestic violence incidents. Danielle Mask born November third,

(02:33):
nineteen seventy six had a long history of domestic battery
arrests going back to at least twenty ten, so several
predating her relationship with Jason. Court records show most of
those cases were dismissed or declined to be prosecuted by
the Clark County District Attorney. By twenty twenty three, she
had at least eight domestic battery arrests on her record.

(02:54):
The history between Jason and Danielle in the months immediately
before his murder was particularly disturbing. On February third, twenty
twenty three, she was charged with attempted murder and domestic
battery with a deadly weapon for stabbing Jason. Later in May,
there was another domestic battery charge, and in July another stabbing.
This time, she stabbed Jason in the arm and in

(03:16):
his face during an argument. Jason called nine one one
during that July attack, shouting put the knife down while
Danielle cursed and yelled threats in the background. He locked
himself in a bedroom, but she kicked down the door.
When police arrived, Jason identified her as his attacker. She
had barricaded herself in the home and was arrested after
a standoff. When Jason was interviewed, he said the fight

(03:39):
happened because Danielle had been crying about her DUI arrest
and losing her driver's license, and he told her to
stop crying. He said that Danielle grabbed a knife and
that's when he ran into the bedroom, barricaded himself inside,
and called nine one one. When the officers asked him
if Danielle had stabbed him, he refused to answer any
more questions.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Unfortunately, none of these inside and led to Danielle going
to jail or to domestic violence batterer classes. Jason did
not appear for the preliminary hearing on August fourteenth, twenty
twenty three, so the case was just dropped. However, he
did have a protective order in place that required Danielle
to stay away from him, but she violated that order repeatedly.
We've touched on cases in the past where protective orders

(04:20):
don't change the behavior of the abuser. Danielle and Jason
continue to live together despite the order and her extreme violence.
So just to recap, in the five months leading up
to September twenty twenty three, Danielle stabbed Jason on two
separate occasions and held scissors to his face in another incident.
It was later noted by the police that both had

(04:40):
been arrested during past arguments, but in each of the
three most recent Violet incidents, Jason was the victim.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
On September second, twenty twenty three, the two of them
had an argument that morning that was reportedly about a
text message Jason had seen on Danielle's phone. One of
their roommates, who was home with his children. For Danielle
yell mother, effer, I'm going to kill you, and Jason
yelled back, do it, bitch. Their roommate knew that the
two of them had a very strained and violent relationship,

(05:09):
so he quickly gathered up his family and left the house.
At some point In the heat of the argument, Danielle
said she grabbed her phone and stormed out. She claimed
that she later realized she had accidentally taken Jason's phone
with her. The two phones were the same brand, herge
just had a slightly different case. She said she returned
to the house about an hour later to find Jason
unconscious in a chair on the porch. She called nine

(05:32):
one one, but didn't identify herself. When the officers arrived,
Jason was still alive, but gravely injured with a stab
wound to his chest. He was taken to UMC, where
he was pronounced dead. Initially, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Lieutenant
Josh Houchin told reporters that Jason's wound seemed possibly self inflicted,
but investigators quickly found signs that the scene was suspicious.

(05:56):
There was blood in Jason's bedroom and blood on Danielle's
left hand, which was particularly damning because she's left handed.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Danielle was detained for questioning since she was clearly in
violation of the protective order. When the police interviewed her,
she claimed Jason might have wanted to die by suicide,
and said that they would get into fights when either
of them had been drinking or whenever alcohol was involved.
She claimed that her diui arrest had been the source
of one of their biggest fights. When police asked her
why Jason had a knife in his chest, she told

(06:25):
them charge me and that she had said all she
was going to say soon after she was placed under arrest.
It's not really clear why the officer said that to
her about Jason and the knife, because reports state that
the murder weapon was never recovered, which was another reason
why the investigators did not believe Jason had died by suicide.
As part of the investigation, their roommate provided video from

(06:46):
a security camera at the front of the house which
showed Danielle leaving with a knife shortly after the roommate
left with his family. She was saying something to the
effect of I am not the one, possibly meaning I
am not the one to be messed with. One twenty
twenty three, in light of the evidence, a grand jury
indicted Danielle on one count of open murder with a
deadly weapon, and she was held without bail.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Before we get to the court case, I want to
talk a little bit about what an absolute parade of
red flags was happening here and how we have another
story of the system failing to intervene when the signs
were all there. Let's start with one that seemed quite
obvious to me. We've talked on this show before about
the Lethality Assessment tool, which is a series of evidence

(07:29):
based questions used by law enforcement and advocate to determine
the likelihood that someone could be killed by their partner.
It shouldn't be a surprise that Jason's story checks multiple
high risk boxes. Previous use of a weapon against the victim,
prior threats to kill, escalating violence over time, ignoring protective orders.

(07:50):
I don't know if law enforcement referred Jason to domestic
violence advocates or if they used the danger assessment with him,
but Jason absolutely would have scored extremely high. That should
have triggered urgent safety planning and intervention. But instead these
cases kept getting dismissed and the cycle continued. His order
of protection against Danielle was basically useless. One important reminder

(08:14):
domestic violence hotlines are for everyone. Men can call, trans
and eNB folks can as well. Advocates can help victims
regardless of gender, find housing if you're in lethal danger
or at least go through the safety planning steps with you. Remember,
their job is to discuss your safety and your options.
They're not there to tell you what to do or
force you into anything.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
One thing we don't do in the show is victim blaming.
Jason may have let her move back in, but maybe
she was on the lease, or maybe both of them
didn't have any other place to go. That's something we
hear a lot in domestic violence cases. People wonder why
didn't they just leave? But as we've talked about many
times on the show, it's not always that simple. It's
nearly impossible to leave when the abuse is emotional, financial,

(08:57):
or when the system doesn't step in soon enough. What
we do want to say is that there are shelters
that do shelter men. Approximately eighty seven percent of the
domestic violent shelters in the United States do. Advocates at
the National Hotline or local resources should guide you to
programs that serve men, even if their organizations don't. Also,
just a reminder that you don't have to be ready

(09:18):
to go into a shelter in order to reach out
for more information.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
There have been studies that show that when the victim
is a man, he is even less likely to be
believed or supported, and he may experience some stigma in
asking for help. But domestic violence against men, as well
as sexual assault and stalking, does happen. Studies show that
about one in seven men in the United States have
experienced severe physical violence from an intimate partner, and more

(09:44):
than one in four have experienced some form of partner
abuse in their lifetime. I also want to mention that
the rates for men who identify is gay and the
rates for men who identify straight is the same about
one in four, but the numbers for men who identifies
buy can be as high as thirty seven percent. So
this isn't just a question of men being perpetrators. Women

(10:05):
are perpetrators as well, and when there's so much stigma,
it can be hard to know how much goes unreported nationally.
When we talk about domestic violence homicides, women are still
the most frequent victims. In twenty twenty one, about thirty
four percent of murdered women or killed by a current
or former intimate partner. For men, that number is about
six percent, so the gap is huge, but six percent

(10:27):
of male homicide victims is still more than one thousand
men each year.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Here in Nevada, the stats are just as disturbing. According
to the Nevada Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence,
about one in five domestic violence homicide victims in our
state are men. So Jason's not an anomaly. He's part
of a much bigger and largely invisible pattern. Research shows
that when men are killed by their female partners, it's
often after a history of violence, and sometimes it's an

(10:54):
act of self defense. The evidence here doesn't sound like
a story of self defense, though, and Danielle's criminal history
indicates that she was the aggressor, although both had been
arrested in the past.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Leading up to Danielle's trial, the prosecution filed a motion
so they could introduce evidence of prior bad acts. We've
talked about that before on the show. The prior bad
acts need to be relevant, and they need to be
more probative than prejudicial in order to be brought up
a trial. The facts of the July stabbing were so
similar to the circumstances that led up to Jason's murder

(11:27):
that the prosecutors wanted to be able to bring that
up during the trial. In both instances, the pair argued
and Danielle escalated the fight by grabbing a knife and
threatening Jason. The prosecution argued that they should be able
to bring up that incident. The prosecution also tried to
limit expert testimony regarding Danielle's defense. Danielle's attorneys enlisted the

(11:48):
help of an expert in the topic of battered Women's syndrome,
which it appears that her attorneys planned to raise as
a defense. Battered Women's syndrome or BWS, is a psychological
condition identified in the late nineteen seventies by psychologist doctor
Lenoor Walker. Doctor Walker studied patterns in women who had
been abused by their partners over a long period of

(12:09):
time and found common stages of what she called the
cycle of violence. The syndrome started appearing in US courtrooms
in the early nineteen eighties, often in homicide cases where
an abused woman killed her partner, but not in a
typical self defense case where there's an immediate incident an
immediate threat of death that leads to the victim defending
herself in order to prevent being killed. The battered Women's

(12:31):
syndrome defense usually hinges on expert testimony to explain how
prolonged abuse can make a victim believe escape isn't possible
and they will be murdered unless they kill their abuser,
and that the final act of self defense was a
result of systematic abuse over a long period of time.
It's usually known as battered women syndrome, but it is

(12:52):
sometimes called battered person syndrome because it isn't gender specific.
The same psychological effects can apply to men, women, non
by binary people who have been abused over time. Just
a reminder that domestic violence doesn't just look one way.
Anyone regardless of gender, can be a victim.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
It sounds like Danielle perhaps wanted to claim self defense
in this case, but given the documented history between the
two of them, I don't think battered women's syndrome would
have fit that narrative. Police records showed that she was
the aggressor in multiple violent incidents against Jason, including several
stabbings in the months before his death. Also, the expert
who spoke with her and prepared the report for her
defense said that she didn't show any signs of battered

(13:32):
women's syndrome, so they wanted to limit Danielle's defense attorneys
from using that a trial. According to the prosecutors, the
expert wrote that Danielle showed signs of intimate partner violence
and her definition of IPv from the court documents doesn't
match up with our definition. So we'll be talking about
that in this week's Swingshift, so make sure you're subscribed
so you don't miss it.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
The court ruled that the prior bad act could come
into trial, but I couldn't find a ruling in regards
to the expert on battered women syndrome being allowed to testify.
I think that's because Danielle had begun negotiating a plea
with the prosecutors. On February fourth, twenty twenty five, Danielle
pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree with a
deadly weapon. At sentencing, the prosecutor noted that a family

(14:14):
member who wanted to speak couldn't attend due to being
out of state, but emphasized the profound impact Jayson's death
had on his loved ones. She was sentenced to life
without the possibility parole after ten years for the murder
and another four to twenty years for the deadly weapon enhancement,
meaning she will become eligible for parole in twenty thirty seven.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
When men are killed by their intimate partners, their stories
don't always have the same headlines. Jason Williams deserves better
than that. He wasn't just a statistic. He was a
person who tried to get help but was killed anyway.
His story is one more reason why we have to
keep talking about domestic violence in all its forms. This
case is another stark example of missed opportunities. Multiple arrests,

(14:55):
multiple stabbings, and an active protection order, all without consequences
strong enough to protect Jason. If you or someone you
know is experiencing domestic violence, regardless of gender, you can
call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at one eight hundred
and seventy nine nine safe that's seven two three three,
or you can visit sinspod dot com slash resources for

(15:16):
more information on resources close to you. If you are
someone you love is in crisis, you can always call
or text nine to eight eight for suicide and mental
health support. Thank you for listening, as always, and remember
what happens here happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit sinspod

(15:53):
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You can contact us at Questions at Sins and Survivors
dot com.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
If you are someone you know as affected by domestic
violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources
or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources
is available on our website, Sins and Survivors dot com.
Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research,
written and produced by your hosts Sean and John. The
information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time

(16:35):
of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please
email us. Links to source material for this episode can
be found on our website, Sins and Survivors dot com.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All
individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does not
constitute legal advice. Listeners are in courage to consult with
legal professionals for guidance.