Brian Anthony Williams, 50, was arrested without incident by U.S. Marshals on Tuesday, October 6, inside a business in the 3700 block of Mission Boulevard in Mission Beach. The U.S. Marshals Service says Williams had been living in San Diego under the assumed identity “Troy Williams” and working as a chef while wanted in connection with a disturbing 2012 case in Davenport, Iowa.
That business is confirmed to be Miss B’s Coconut Club, the Caribbean-inspired restaurant at 3704 Mission Boulevard, where a man publicly known as Chef Troy Williams has been identified for years as the restaurant’s head chef. Williams is an original Miss B’s employee who had been with the restaurant since its beginning and had led its kitchen as head chef since 2017.
The story becomes considerably stranger when examining Williams’s public profile in San Diego. Far from avoiding attention, “Troy Williams” became a recognizable figure in the local restaurant community. He was listed among participating chefs for the 2025 San Diego Food + Wine Festival, and records of a show him appearing on television representing Miss B’s Coconut Club for International Chef’s Day.
As recently as February 2026, Williams was the subject of an extensive Times of San Diego profile for Black History Month. In that interview, the man identified as Troy Williams described himself as a New York native who grew up in the Queensbridge housing projects in Long Island City and said his mother died when he was 11, after which he was raised by an aunt. He discussed his childhood, racial profiling, his family history and eventually finding opportunity in San Diego, where he said he began as a line cook before rising to head chef.
Federal records tell a dramatically different story about the man authorities now say was behind that identity. The U.S. Marshals Service lists Brian Anthony Williams as having been born in Iowa on October 29, 1975. Its fugitive poster identified several previously known aliases, including Andre Williams, Anthony Williams and Dre Williams, and warned that he should be considered “armed and dangerous.”
Even the name Williams allegedly adopted in San Diego has an extraordinary connection to the case. An Iowa Court of Appeals decision involving one of Williams’s alleged co-conspirators identifies Brian Williams’s younger brother as Troy Andrew Williams. That means the “Troy Williams” identity Brian allegedly used while establishing his San Diego restaurant career shared the name of his own brother, who was prosecuted in connection with the underlying 2012 criminal scheme.
The allegations behind Williams’s nearly 14 years as a fugitive are significantly more complicated than a random kidnapping. According to the U.S. Marshals Service, Williams was charged in Scott County, Iowa, on October 26, 2012, with first-degree kidnapping, willful injury causing serious injury, conspiracy to commit a felony and first-degree arson stemming from an October 8, 2012 attack. Authorities allege Williams and co-conspirators kidnapped and assaulted a woman, shot her and left her in a field in northwest.
Contemporaneous reporting and subsequent Iowa court records provide additional details. The victim, Brittany Hamilton, had reportedly been Williams’s girlfriend for approximately five years, although their relationship had deteriorated and she had begun seeing another man. According to a 2014 Iowa Court of Appeals decision in the prosecution of Williams’s brother, investigators alleged Brian Williams had been planning a scheme targeting Hamilton for about a week.
“The arrest of our chef, known to us as Troy Williams, has been deeply unsettling for our team at Miss B’s Coconut Club," commented Pete Cich, Managing Partner of Miss B’s Coconut Club. “We take the allegations described by the U.S. Marshals Service seriously, and our thoughts are with the people harmed in the events described by authorities. Our immediate focus is supporting our staff. We will cooperate with law enforcement and refer questions about the criminal case to the U.S. Marshals Service.”
Hamilton initially told authorities that she and Williams had both been abducted. According to 2012 reporting by Radio Iowa, Hamilton said the pair had been duct-taped, taken from their home at gunpoint and transported to a field, where she was shot in the leg. Investigators subsequently alleged that Williams had actually staged the abduction with others while he and Hamilton were breaking up.
Authorities further alleged that Williams and accomplices went to the home of Hamilton’s new boyfriend, poured gasoline on the residence and set it on fire. Five people who were inside the home escaped, according to reporting at the time.
The Iowa Court of Appeals record from the prosecution of Williams’s younger brother offers another glimpse into the alleged planning. Testimony cited by the court indicated that another Williams brother recalled Brian saying they were going to “do something” to Hamilton that night, while prosecutors presented evidence alleging that the group also planned to steal money from her. Troy Andrew Williams was ultimately convicted of conspiracy to commit a nonforcible felony, a conviction upheld on appeal in 2014. Brian Williams, however, was gone.
In 2013, federal authorities charged him in the Southern District of Iowa with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The Davenport Police Department enlisted the U.S. Marshals Service Southern Iowa Fugitive Task Force, and Williams remained publicly listed as a wanted fugitive for years. His federal wanted notice displayed his photograph and physical description and listed kidnapping, arson, serious willful injury and conspiracy among the allegations against him.
Yet at some point, according to federal authorities, Williams was living more than 1,500 miles away in San Diego and establishing a very different public identity. The U.S. Marshals Service says investigators finally developed information in September 2026 indicating Williams was living in San Diego as “Troy Williams.” Rather than discovering someone who had completely disappeared from public view, investigators found that the person they believed was Williams had appeared in local publications and television news reports using the assumed identity.
Those public appearances appear to have provided investigators with an unusually visible trail. The man identified for years as Troy Williams wasn’t simply working anonymously in a restaurant kitchen. He was being photographed, interviewed, promoted as a chef and appearing in media while Brian Anthony Williams remained featured on a federal fugitive page.
Federal authorities have not publicly explained what specifically generated the September lead, how long Williams had been living in San Diego, whether his employer knew his true identity or what documentation he allegedly used to maintain the Troy Williams identity.
On October 6, San Diego-based deputy U.S. Marshals went to the 3700 block of Mission Boulevard and located Williams inside a business. He was arrested without incident.
“This arrest is a perfect example of those who think they have bested law enforcement and evaded arrest,” U.S. Marshal Ted Kamatchus of the Southern District of Iowa said following the capture. “Deputy U.S. Marshals remain resolute in their relentless pursuit of the most dangerous offenders in our society.”
Williams remains in U.S. Marshals Service custody pending extradition to Iowa, where the criminal allegations that have followed him since 2012 await resolution. The charges against Williams are allegations, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
For Mission Beach, the arrest also leaves an extraordinary question hanging over a familiar local figure: how a man federal authorities had publicly sought for nearly 14 years allegedly managed to reinvent himself in San Diego so successfully that, rather than simply disappearing, he became the head chef of a prominent beachfront restaurant and repeatedly stepped in front of cameras under another name.
Originally published on October 7, 2026.