Missouri Executes Marcellus Williams For 1998 Killing Of A Woman Despite Her Family’s Calls To Spare His Life

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man was executed Tuesday for breaking into a girl’s dwelling and killing her, regardless of calls by her household and the prosecutor’s workplace that put him on loss of life row to let him serve out the remainder of his life in jail.

Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted within the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was repeatedly stabbed through the housebreaking of her suburban St. Louis dwelling.

Williams’ hopes of getting his sentence commuted to life in jail suffered twin setbacks Monday when, virtually concurrently, Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied him clemency and the Missouri Supreme Court docket declined to grant him a keep of execution. The U.S. Supreme Court docket declined to intervene Tuesday.

Williams was put to loss of life regardless of questions his attorneys raised over jury choice at his trial and the dealing with of proof within the case. His clemency petition centered closely on how Gayle’s kin needed Williams’ sentence commuted to life with out the potential of parole.

“The household defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to stay,” the petition said. “Marcellus’ execution shouldn’t be crucial.”

Final month, Gayle’s kin gave their blessings to an settlement between the St. Louis County prosecuting legal professional’s workplace and Williams’ attorneys to commute the sentence to life in jail. However performing on an enchantment from Missouri Legal professional Normal Andrew Bailey’s Workplace, the state Supreme Court docket nullified the settlement.

Williams was amongst loss of life row inmates in 5 states who have been scheduled to be put to loss of life within the span of per week — an unusually excessive quantity that defies a yearslong decline within the use and help of the loss of life penalty within the U.S. The primary was carried out Friday in South Carolina. Texas was additionally slated to execute a prisoner on Tuesday night.

Gayle, 42, was a social employee and former St. Louis Put up-Dispatch reporter. Prosecutors at Williams’trial mentioned he broke into her dwelling on Aug. 11, 1998, heard the bathe operating and located a big butcher knife. Gayle was stabbed 43 instances when she got here downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop computer have been stolen.

Authorities mentioned Williams stole a jacket to hide blood on his shirt. His girlfriend requested him why he would put on a jacket on a scorching day. She mentioned she later noticed the purse and laptop computer in his automotive and that Williams offered the pc a day or two later.

Prosecutors additionally cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 whereas Williams was jailed on unrelated fees. Cole advised prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and supplied particulars about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole have been each convicted of felonies and needed a $10,000 reward. They mentioned that fingerprints, a bloody shoeprint, hair and different proof on the crime scene didn’t match Williams’.

Against the law scene investigator had testified the killer wore gloves.

Tuesday marked the third time Williams had confronted execution. He was lower than per week away from deadly injection in January 2015 when the state Supreme Court docket known as it off, permitting time for his attorneys to pursue further DNA testing.

Williams was hours from being executed in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a keep. Greitens appointed a panel of retired judges to look at the case. However that panel by no means reached a conclusion.

Questions on DNA proof additionally led St. Louis Prosecuting Legal professional Wesley Bell to request a listening to difficult Williams’ guilt. However days earlier than the Aug. 21 listening to, new testing confirmed that DNA on the knife belonged to members of the prosecutor’s workplace who dealt with it with out gloves after the unique crime lab assessments.

With out DNA proof pointing to any various suspect, Midwest Innocence Venture attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s workplace: Williams would enter a brand new, no-contest plea to first-degree homicide in trade for a brand new sentence of life in jail with out parole. A no-contest plea isn’t an act of contrition however is handled as such for the aim of sentencing.

Decide Bruce Hilton signed off, as did Gayle’s household. However Bailey appealed, and the state Supreme Court docket blocked the settlement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary listening to, which came about final month.

Hilton dominated on Sept. 12 that the first-degree homicide conviction and loss of life sentence would stand, noting that Williams’ arguments all had been beforehand rejected. That call was upheld Monday by the state Supreme Court docket.

Attorneys for Williams, who was Black, additionally challenged the equity of his trial, significantly the truth that solely one of many 12 jurors was Black. Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Venture mentioned the prosecutor within the case, Keith Larner, eliminated six of seven Black potential jurors.

Larner testified on the August listening to that he struck one potential Black juror partly as a result of he seemed an excessive amount of like Williams — an announcement that Williams’ attorneys asserted confirmed improper racial bias.

Larner contended that the jury choice course of was truthful.

Williams was the third Missouri inmate put to loss of life this yr and the one hundredth for the reason that state resumed use of the loss of life penalty in 1989.

AP author Mark Sherman contributed from Washington. Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.