By Rudi Keller
Just a few hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final appeal, Missouri officials executed Marcellus Williams Tuesday at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre.
Williams, who was backed in his appeals for clemency by St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, left only a single sentence — “All praise to Allah in every situation” — in his last statement, KMOV TV reported.
Williams was sentenced to death for the 1998 slaying of Felicia Gayle, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who was stabbed more than 40 times.
None of the physical evidence at the crime scene, including fingerprints, bloodied shoe prints and hairs, could be tied to Williams. He was arrested based on the testimony of a jailhouse informant, who said Williams confessed the murder.
During testimony at his murder trial, Williams’ then-girlfriend also said he confessed to the killing. Williams picked her up the day of Gayle’s slaying wearing a jacket over a bloody shirt and with scratches on his neck. She saw a laptop in his car – later shown to have been stolen from Gayle’s apartment – and a purse in the trunk, with Gayle’s identification card.
In the final effort to free Williams or reduce his sentence, Bell filed a case under a 2021 state law allowing prosecutors to bring new evidence to the courts. It was the first time the law has been used in a death penalty case.
Bell filed the case in January, arguing there was “clear and convincing evidence” that potential jurors had been excluded based on race and questioning whether DNA evidence on the knife that killed Gayle had been contaminated by careless handling.
The Missouri Supreme Court heard a final appeal of the ruling in that case on Monday, and found the evidence was not convincing.
Bell “failed to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence Williams’ actual innocence or constitutional error at the original criminal trial that undermines the confidence in the judgment of the original criminal trial,” Judge Zel Fischer wrote in the opinion.
The Department of Corrections declared Williams dead at 6:10 p.m. after a lethal injection, the Kansas City Star reported.
Bell issued a statement that he remained convinced Williams should have been spared.
“Marcellus Williams should be alive today,” Bell said. “There were multiple points in the timeline when decisions could have been made that would have spared him the death penalty. If there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the death penalty should never be an option. This outcome did not serve the interests of justice.”
State Rep. Crystal Quade, the Democratic candidate for governor, issued a statement over social media saying that she disagreed with allowing the execution to proceed.
“I’ve always stood firm in my stance that the state should not execute potentially innocent people. Marcellus Williams is no different,” Quade said.
There was no statement from Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, the Republican candidate.
Gov. MIke Parson, in a statement on Monday stating he would not stop the execution, said he was not convinced by any appeals.
“No jury nor court, including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams’ innocence claims,” Parson said. “At the end of the day, his guilty verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld. Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams’ innocence, as such, Mr. Williams’ punishment will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court.”
Williams is the 100th person executed by Missouri since 1989, when executions resumed after a two-decade lapse.
This article originally appeared in the Missouri Independent on September 24th, 2024
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