JASPER — Kristopher Tayshaun Drayton, a 24-year-old Woodville man, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the murder of his girlfriend, and was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Drayton had previously pleaded not guilty to the crime, last October. His plea came after negotiations between Jasper County District Attorney John Burt and his attorney Ysidra Kyles. Drayton was charged with murder, which had been upgraded from an initial manslaughter charge, of his girlfriend, Keniyah Brenae Williams, on May 27, 2025.
Drayton was also charged of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on Stephanie Rocquemore, whom he threatened to kill in April of 2025. Judge Craig Mixon, of the 1A District Court, handed down the 50-year sentence for the murder, and a 20-year sentence for the assault charge, which will run concurrently.
He has been in custody of the Jasper County Jail on bonds totaling more than half a million dollars since his arrest following Williams’s death. Drayton had told investigators that he removed his pistol from his waistband and placed it between the driver’s seat and center console of his vehicle when the weapon “went off and struck Keniyah,” after the two had been arguing. She later died in the emergency room of Christus Jasper Memorial Hospital. Williams’s two young sons were also in the car when she was shot.
