‘It still haunts me’: Bay Area man gets life sentence for murder on BART train

The victim was the one who pulled out a knife, but the defendant took it from him and stabbed him repeatedly in what the judge described as a frenzy.

DUBLIN — An Alameda County judge has sentenced a man to 16 years to life in prison in a murder case where the victim pulled out a knife first, only for the defendant to take it and kill him as they rode BART.

Jermaine Brim, 44, was sentenced six months after being convicted of second-degree murder in the 2019 stabbing death of 49-year-old Oliver T. Williams. He was transferred to the state prison system on April 24 and is currently housed at North Kern State Prison, records show.

Before Brim was sentenced, he heard from several of Williams’ loved ones, including his sister, girlfriend and daughter.

“I know I’m supposed to feel lucky and grateful to have had any time with him at all, and I do, but if I’m honest, I also feel cheated,” Williams’ girlfriend, Susan Sarratt, said at the hearing. “We were still at the beginning of our story and there was so many milestones we never got to reach, and I’ll never get to know really what our love would have been like in five, 10, 20 years.”

Williams’ sister told Brim she won’t forgive him and warned she believes in karma, while his daughter told Brim that “you also killed a piece of me that I may not ever get back, but I wish you all the best,” according to a transcript of the hearing. Several of Brim’s loved ones spoke out in his defense, calling him a positive influence and a warm and generous person.

Near the hearing’s end, Brim apologized and told Williams’ family, “I’m not a bad person.”

“I was in a situation where I was confronted and I did the best that I can do with my situation,” he said. “I’m sorry that it happened to you guys. I’m sorry for (your) loss. You know, I didn’t want it to happen like that.”

The men’s paths crossed on a BART train on the early afternoon of Nov. 19, 2019. As the train approached Hayward, they began arguing and fighting after Brim allegedly tried to steal a sleeping passenger’s shoes and Williams intervened. Williams pulled out a knife, only to be disarmed and stabbed to death with his own weapon, according to court records.

Brim was arrested and charged soon after, but the case stalled for years, in part due to concerns over his mental competency for trial, records show.

While announcing Brim’s sentence, Alameda County Judge Jennifer Madden, who watched the trial, described video of the attack from BART surveillance cameras and said “it still haunts me.”

“When you got that knife, it was like all hell broke loose. You stabbed him, and then you stabbed him again and you stabbed him again and you stabbed him again, and it repeated 11 times,” she told Brim. “I don’t think in my time as a (prosecutor) for 19 years or as a judge for seven years, I’ve ever seen a video like the one I had to watch.”

Brim will be eligible for parole in July 2030, according to prison records.