Man convicted of killing student near RTA hub learns sentence

He was on his way to school the day he died.

“I don’t understand it. I just know that my life is shattered,” Nellie Bailey, Hale’s mother, said in court.

“It’s like I broke the glass and can’t put no pieces back together,” Bailey said.

She watched as judges sent a couple convicted in connection with the investigation into her son’s murder to prison.

Julius Williamson Jr. got into an argument with Hale near the Dayton RTA hub in April 2025.

Hale was waiting for a bus to take him to school.

The argument ended with Williamson shooting Hale outside a nearby store.

Medics took Hale to the hospital, where he died.

We heard from his grandma about the family’s grief.

“I’ll never see my grandson again. I’ll never see my son again because he grieved himself to death,” Mattie Coleman said.

Williamson apologized to Hale’s family.

“I’m sorry to the family for that, and I offer my condolences,” he said.

So did Williamson’s girlfriend, Jelisa Gomez.

She admitted to a gun charge in connection with the murder investigation.

She knew Williamson could not carry a gun because of a prior felony conviction on his record, but she carried a gun for him anyway.

It was in her purse.

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Prosecutors said Williamson knew that and reached for that gun and used it in Hale’s murder.

“I hate the fact that his family has to endure this pain, this burden,” Gomez said. “I never meant for this horrific incident to take place.”

Hale’s mother reacted to Gomez’s apology.

“I’m sorry, I do not accept your apology. I will never forgive you for what you did,” Bailey said.

After that, the judge sent Gomez to prison for three years.

A different judge told Williamson his punishment was life in prison with his first shot at parole in 28 years.

Hale’s death kicked off a push by state lawmakers to change how Dayton Public School high schoolers get to class.

DPS is a little more than a month away from the start of the new school year.

As of now, the district has a court order from a judge saying it still can buy bus passes to put high schoolers on RTA buses here at the hub to get them to class.

That order is in place until this lawsuit from the district is settled.

That could change as there’s a trial in this case that’s scheduled to start right around the time winter break hits.

“We’re about 25 work days or so from the first day of school,” Dr. David Lawrence, superintendent for DPS, said.

Lawrence spoke on how the open legal battle could impact how bussing looks in the new school year.

“Bussing is going to look like it’s looked for the last decade or more,” Lawrence said.

How that’s looked is at the center of a legal fight over bussing for DPS high schoolers.

The district is suing the state of Ohio.

DPS claims a law included in last year’s state budget banning DPS from providing RTA bus passes to its high school students for transportation is “discriminatory.”

The school district claims the state requirement to take charter school students to their buildings on yellow school buses does not leave enough drivers and buses for high schoolers.

“We don’t have the capacity to transport them. That’s a funding issue. It’s a charter school issue. There’s a lot of complex layers to that,’ Lawrence said.

For the last four school years, DPS’ solution has been buying RTA passes for high schoolers.

The trial tied to the district’s lawsuit against the state is currently set for early December.

News Center 7 asked Lawrence how the district would pivot in the middle of the school year if it needed to, if the court decided.

“We spend time out here as a leadership team, and we are preparing to pivot if we lose, but we’ll see what happens,” Lawrence said.