A white supremacist who helped firebomb three Sacramento-area synagogues before his brother gunned down a gay couple in their Shasta County home is tentatively scheduled for a parole hearing before California's Board of Parole Hearings at the state prison in Corcoran. Tyler James Williams, now 56, is serving a sentence of 50 years to life and has been imprisoned since 2003, after pleading guilty to the synagogue firebombings, an abortion clinic arson, and the murders of Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder.
The attacks began before dawn on June 18, 1999, when Williams and his older brother, Benjamin Matthew Williams, set fire to Congregation B'nai Israel, Congregation Beth Shalom in Carmichael, and Kenesset Israel Torah Center in Arden Arcade, according to CapRadio. Reported damage estimates differ: CapRadio has put the toll at nearly $3 million, including the destruction of a library of Jewish history, while the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported total damage at closer to $1 million. No one was hurt in the fires. Investigators also found anti-Semitic leaflets.
From Arson to Murder in Shasta County
The brothers' spree did not end with the synagogues. On July 1, 1999, Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder were shot to death while sleeping at their rural Happy Valley home, according to the Redding Record Searchlight. The attackers believed that because Matson and Mowder were gay, they had to die, the paper reported. According to the Sacramento Bee's reporting, Tyler Williams built the gun silencer used in the killings and drove to the couple's home, while Benjamin Matthew Williams entered the house and shot the men. Defense attorneys have maintained that Tyler Williams was coerced by his older brother. Benjamin Matthew Williams died by suicide in the Shasta County jail in 2002, before the case concluded.
Clea Matson, who was 19 when her father was killed, addressed Williams directly, telling him, “You are the only person to whom I have anything left to say.” She said nothing was purified by the killings, and that evil was only added to the world. At his March 2003 sentencing, Williams submitted a typed statement saying he had reconsidered his beliefs, stating he repented for trying to take God's leadership role instead of waiting for God's timing.
A Sentencing Structure Built for Scrutiny
Shasta County Superior Court Judge William D. Gallagher imposed a sentence of 29 years to life for the murders that same month, while Williams also received a 19-year federal sentence for the synagogue firebombings. Williams was required to serve his federal sentence before beginning his state sentence — a sequencing Gallagher said was deliberate, so that parole officials, not the courts, would be left to judge whether Williams posed a risk years later. “I want someone who is responsible to decide whether Mr. Williams is safe to live in society at that moment,” Gallagher said, according to the Sacramento Bee. Williams was not sentenced to death or to life without the possibility of parole, leaving the door open for exactly this kind of review. He was previously denied parole in January 2021.
Williams is now eligible for a hearing under California's Elderly Parole Program, which reviews suitability for release for inmates at least 50 years old who have served at least 20 consecutive years on their current sentence, or at least 25 years for those 60 and older, per the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The program's threshold includes a minimum age of 50 and 20 continuous years served. The department describes the purpose of any such hearing as determining whether a person should be released on parole — not resolving guilt or rewriting the historical record of the crime.
Another Elderly Parole Case Looms Over Sacramento
Williams is not the only aging Sacramento-area inmate testing the elderly parole process. David Allen Funston, who was serving multiple life sentences for kidnapping and sexually assaulting Sacramento-area children during a 1995 crime spree, was released under the elderly parole program before being rearrested and arraigned in connection with a 1996 case involving a child in Roseville, in Placer County. Funston remains in the Placer County jail. The case has become a reference point for critics questioning whether the elderly parole system adequately screens for ongoing risk.
The 1999 attacks also left a mark well beyond the courtroom. A unity rally drawing people of all faiths and races to Sacramento following the synagogue attacks pulled a crowd of 5,000, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's archival reporting — a show of communal resolve that stood in stark contrast to the hatred behind the firebombings. CapRadio has separately reported that recent polls and studies point to a rise in white supremacist activity and hate propaganda nationally, underscoring why the 1999 case still resonates in Sacramento more than two decades later. Whether Williams' tentatively scheduled hearing at Corcoran results in any change to his custody status remains to be seen.
