The top law-enforcement officer for Delta, who previously worked for about five years in the Warren County Sheriff’s Department, has died of cancer.

Tim Williams, 40, died Friday at his home in Newbern, Tenn., his wife’s hometown where he and his family had returned on a leave of absence he took after he contracted the disease.

Williams was from Lake County, in northwestern Tennessee, and had years of law-enforcement experience in that county’s sheriff’s department before he and his family moved to Vicksburg.

He began work with the Warren County Sheriff’s Department in 1997 as assistant administrator of the county’s juvenile-detention center. The center was then under construction and Williams played a key role in getting it established and helping manage it for about two years, Sheriff Martin Pace said.

Williams then became a detective for the department and served in that capacity for about three years, participating in several high-profile investigations, Pace said.

He left the sheriff’s department to accept an appointment as marshal for the village of Delta, directly across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg in Madison Parish. He was a K-9 officer and helped patrol Interstate 20, assisting authorities with narcotics searches in both Madison Parish and Warren County.

“He was a very thorough, dedicated investigator and continued to assist Warren County even after taking the appointment as the marshal in Delta,” Pace said of Williams.

Saturday afternoon, Delta officials including Mayor Robert Ott and Andy Webb of the marshal’s office, also a former Warren County deputy, had left for Williams’ funeral, scheduled for 3 p.m. today in his hometown of Tiptonville, Tenn., and were not available.

Pace and several deputies also planned to represent Warren County at the funeral, he said.