photo by: Jeremy Scott Williams

Jeremy Scott Williams at a hearing on Oct. 7, 2022.

When Monique Jaimez and her wife, Jenna Bloom, were driving at Lone Star Lake in February of 2021, they stumbled upon a bizarre scene: a sedan nose-deep in the partially frozen lake and a woman in the water screaming for help.

Jaimez testified on Friday in Douglas County District Court about how she waded into the frigid water to pull the 54-year-old woman and a dog out of the lake. And she also recalled a man who was running away from the car and told her the woman in the water “doesn’t need any help.”

The testimony was part of a preliminary hearing for 23-year-old Jeremy Scott Williams, who prosecutors allege drove the car into the lake with his mother inside on Feb. 25, 2021, in an attempt to kill her. Williams is charged with one count of second-degree attempted murder, according to charging documents in the case.

On Friday, Jaimez said she and Bloom first saw the car when they were driving around at the lake, and they initially thought it was a boat. But when they realized what it was, they quickly parked and got out to see if they could help.

Jaimez said she started walking down the hill toward the icy lake while Bloom stayed at the top of the hill and called 911. On her way down, Jaimez said, she passed by a man who was running up the hill.

“She doesn’t need any help,” Jaimez said the man told her as he passed by.

But Jaimez testified that when she got in the water and waded out to the woman, the woman told her that the man was trying to kill her.

“That changed the situation — that this woman was hurt and now my wife is at the top of the hill standing next to the man,” Jaimez said.

The woman said she couldn’t get out of the water on her own because her ankle was injured, Jaimez recalled. So Jaimez helped her to shore, and when they got out of the water Jaimez could see that the woman’s ankle was clearly broken.

Then, Jaimez said, the woman told her there was a dog in the car, as well.

“I went back for it,” Jaimez said. She said the dog had managed to get into the trunk of the car; she was able to pull it out, and it wasn’t hurt.

Altogether, Jaimez said she was in the icy water for about five minutes.

As the Journal-World previously reported, first responders were called to the lake at around 6:50 p.m. on Feb. 25, 2021. The 54-year-old woman was hospitalized with serious injuries and cold exposure, and sheriff’s deputies arrested Williams around 7 p.m. that day at East 665 Road, which is a county road along the lake’s eastern bank.

• • •

Chad Robertson, one of the deputies who responded to the incident, also testified at Friday’s hearing, and he played a recording of an interview that he conducted with the woman at LMH Health.

In the interview, the woman said that on the day of the incident, she and Williams visited her parents in Baldwin City, but that during the visit Williams began to talk about harming himself. The woman said that at one point, Williams picked up an electric drill and asked what she thought it would do if he drove it into his arm.

When they left her parents’ house just before dark to drive back to Lawrence, Williams asked to drive, the woman said.

“He was driving erratically on those backroads. He almost ran into the side of a bridge, and he played chicken with an oncoming car,” she said.

Eventually, the woman said, they missed their turn to get back to Lawrence, and they instead headed toward Lone Star Lake. She said Williams told her that he was going to “drive until the gas ran out.” During the drive, she said, Williams didn’t look at her, but he did ask her when the last time she prayed was.

When they got within sight of the lake, the woman said, Williams put his foot on the gas and drove straight into the water.

The woman said that Williams got out of the car without any problem, but that she couldn’t get the passenger side door open and instead had to crawl over to the driver’s side and go out that way. She said she knew her ankle was hurt.

She also said that Williams took her phone and threw it into the water, and that at one point he motioned for her to come with him farther into the lake. She said she held onto the car door and waited 20 or 30 minutes in the water before anyone came to help.

The woman also told Robertson that she didn’t want Williams to go to jail.

“Jeremy doesn’t need to be in jail; he needs to be in the hospital,” the woman told Robertson, asking him to call Williams’ case worker from Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center.

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As previously reported by the Journal-World, Williams’ court proceedings had been postponed because he was deemed incompetent to stand trial in April of 2021. Court records indicate that he spent a year in the Douglas County Jail and then was treated at Larned State Mental Hospital in May 2022, after which he was deemed competent on July 1.

Judge Amy Hanley will make the ultimate decision on whether Williams will stand trial in the case. She said after Friday’s hearing that Williams’ defense attorney, Thomas Penland, and the prosecution would have one more opportunity to present arguments on Nov. 22, and that she would then make her decision on whether there was probable cause to bind Williams over for trial on the attempted murder charge.

Williams has been in custody since his arrest on a $250,000 cash or surety bond.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Jeremy Scott Williams, left, defense attorney Thomas Penland, center, and Deputy District Attorney Joshua Seiden, right, at a hearing on Oct. 7, 2022.