Jesse Kley stood outside Dixon Correctional Center Thursday morning with one goal in mind — that the Elgin man who murdered his toddler daughter 24 years ago see the face of the child’s father and remember what he did.
Cayce Williams was released from prison exactly 24 years to the day on which he sexually assaulted and beat 20-month-old Quortney Kley while her mother, his then-girlfriend, was at work and he was babysitting the girl and her sister. She died at the hospital on Feb. 25, 1997.
“I want him to see someone is here for her,” Kley said. “His time may be done here, but she’s not forgotten.”
Ultimately, Kley left disheartened. Correctional center guards prevented him and the media from entering the prison’s parking lot to watch Williams exit the building. He was forced to wait across the street and doesn’t know if the convicted felon saw him or not.
An Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman confirmed Williams was freed Thursday. Among the requirements set by the Prison Review Board, Williams is to have no contact with Quortney’s family, must be electronically monitored so he can’t leave the house for the duration of his three-year parole and will need to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, the spokesman said.
Although where Williams will be living was not disclosed, Quortney’s mother, Margaret “Gretta” Morgan, was told it would be somewhere in McHenry County.
Williams’ family couldn’t be reached for comment.
Kley spent some of the time he waited outside the prison talking about his daughter before heading to Bluff City Cemetery in Elgin, where Quortney is buried.
He wants people to know what Williams did and to be aware that a “child killer and rapist is coming to your area. Lock your doors,” Kley said.
Part of his frustration — and that of the rest of Quortney’s family — is Williams served only 50% of the 48-year term he received, he said. When they agreed to a deal in which Williams would plead guilty to murder in exchange for the prison term, family members thought he would serve the whole sentence, Kley said.
However, the law under which that would have been true was found to be unconstitutional. As a result, the sentence was adjusted and barring any bad behavior in prison, Williams was given a day off his sentence for every “good” day he spent incarcerated.
Kley said he and Morgan, his former wife, learned their daughter’s killer would be released three weeks ago. It came as a surprise, he said.
“We assumed he would do 100% of the time,” he said, especially since he wanted Williams to get the death penalty if the case went to trial and he was convicted.
“It’s what we were fighting for at the time,” Kley said. “(Williams) wore us down. I figured 48 years was enough time and my kids would be grown.”
Kley has two daughters, Quortney’s sister and a 9-year-old, he said. The youngest knows about her sister’s death but hasn’t been told the specific details yet.
He can never forgive Williams for the murder, but had hoped he’d at least see some remorse in the eyes of his child’s killer.
“I was on my hands and knees bawling (the day Quortney died),” Kley said. “I think that day something snapped in me. A lot of people tell me I’m not the same.
“I’ve learned to celebrate her life instead of mourn her death (but) then this happened and it brings it all back like 24 years hasn’t passed,” he said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
