A Madera County, California, jury has convicted a member of the Small Town Peckerwoods, a racist group with ties to the racist prison gang Nazi Low Riders, of first-degree murder for the 2004 stabbing death of a California woman who was allegedly killed as part of an initiation rite.

Michael Williams, 26, was found guilty on September 6, 2006, by a Madera County jury in the death of a 19-year-old Madera woman.  The jury found Williams guilty of active participation in a criminal street gang, finding that the murder was committed to further the Small Town Peckerwoods. 

A second defendant, Raymond Elisarraras, hanged himself in the county jail two years ago. 

The incident occurred after a party where nearly all of the men present were Peckerwoods.  A Madera police officer testified that the two may have committed the murder as part of an initiation rite into the Nazi Low Riders.

Prosecutors also believe that the woman may have been killed because she was a possible informant in the murder trial of a Nazi Low Rider member sentenced to death.

Williams faces a potential sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.