The Murder of Radio Legend Steven B. Williams

  

Steven B. Williams had a gift. His deep voice made him a natural for radio, and he parlayed that talent into a lifelong career. In 1970, at the age of just 23, he started working at Honolulu's top rock radio station, KKUA. It was the year "Let It Be" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" topped the charts.

Back then, FM radio was only in its infancy and AM disc jockeys were bigger than life — some like "Wolfman Jack" were celebrities in their own right. Williams left KKUA and worked at several other Hawaii stations, becoming famous and earning an industry nickname of "The Pipes."

He moved to the Denver market in 1980, where he originated the morning FM radio drive show format with partner Don Hawkins. The pair was known as "Steven B. and the Hawk" and featured self-deprecating humor, celebrity spoofs, and parodies of current television shows.

He bounced around between Colorado and San Francisco before retiring from daily radio in 2001 to do voice-overs for radio and TV.

That year, he wrote on the radio announcer's web site www.440.com:

While attending a recent function at my favorite winery, V. Sattui Winery in Napa Valley, I was stunned when Daryl Sattui, owner and great-grandson of the founder, offered me a job. After exhaustive analysis of all the pros & cons, I accepted his offer just slightly before he was able to finish his sentence. I am now living and working in what can only be described as a dead ringer for the Bordeaux region of France where I continue to provide voice imaging to my radio & TV clients.

His father was a World War II fighter pilot Capt. Bailey A. Williams. His Bailey Williams also flew in Vietnam and then went to work for Rockwell, where he patented missile technology.

Bailey Williams. lived in Orange County, Calif., and became sick in 2001. So his son moved in with him as a caretaker until the elder Williams' death in 2003. At that point, Bailey Williams had amassed a fortune of nearly $3 million, which was left to his son and a daughter, Jan.

Not someone who was savvy with finances, Steven B. Williams proved to be the perfect mark for Harvey Morrow.