The state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams Tuesday evening despite strong claims of innocence and DNA evidence failing to link him to the 1998 killing of former newspaper reporter Lisha Gayle. Both the prosecutor and the victim’s family sought to spare his life, but the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal. His execution raises questions about the death penalty in this country.

Williams, 55, maintained his innocence and sought to have his case reviewed, but his attempts for reprieve were unsuccessful. He became the third inmate executed in Missouri this year and the 15th in the nation. The Missouri Department of Corrections confirmed that he was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 6:10 p.m. CT, USA Today reported.

Williams was a devoted Muslim who served as an imam for prisoners and a poet. Days before his death, Williams issued his final statement: “All praise be to Allah in every situation.”

“Tonight, we all bear witness to Missouri’s grotesque exercise of state power,” Williams’ attorney, Tricia Rojo Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project, said in a statement obtained by the outlet, highlighting how prosecutors have “zealously fought to undo the conviction and save Mr. Williams’ life.”

What was Marcellus Williams convicted of?

According to The Associated Press, Williams was convicted in 2001 for the Aug. 11, 1998, killing of Gayle, 42, a former police reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. At the time of the attack, she had just come out of the shower and gone downstairs, where she was stabbed 43 times with a kitchen knife during a burglary at her suburban St. Louis home. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen. 

During the investigation, police alleged that Williams stole a jacket to conceal the blood on his shirt, raising suspicion from his girlfriend, who questioned his choice given the warm weather. She later discovered the purse and laptop he had allegedly stolen from the residence, which Williams sold a few days later.

At his trial, prosecutors presented testimony from Williams’ former cellmate, Henry Cole, who in 1999 claimed that Williams had confessed to killing Gayle and shared specific details about the crime. At the time, Williams was serving a prison sentence for armed robbery in an unrelated case.

Over the years, Williams fought to overturn his conviction while facing execution three times. He was granted reprieve twice, in 2015 and 2017, but neither led to his release. His final attempt failed when Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson denied his appeal on Monday and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene just hours before his death, per AP.

Impact of DNA evidence on the Marcellus Williams case

Despite the two previous failed attempts, a 2021 law allowed Williams to challenge his conviction. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell reviewed the case and filed a motion on Williams’ behalf in January 2023. Bell shared in a 60-page motion that there were several violations of Williams’ constitutional rights during the investigation and the trial, The New York Times reported. 

He argued that Williams’ defense attorney failed to present evidence that could have prevented a conviction, cited racial bias in the jury selection with 11 white jurors and one Black juror, and noted that the footprints, hair and DNA on the murder weapon did not match Williams.

Bell, a Democrat, scheduled a hearing for August based on his findings, but new DNA analysis revealed that the murder weapon had been handled by a prosecutor and an investigator during the trial. Following this, he advocated for Williams to be removed from death row and sentenced to life in prison. However, State Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, requested the state Supreme Court to set Williams’ execution date for Sept. 24, per the Times.

Gayle’s family was also in favor of Williams staying alive in prison.

“The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” his clemency petition stated. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.”

After Williams’ death, Parson expressed his hope that this would provide “finality“ in the case and that Gayle’s family would find some measure of justice after “decades“ of reliving the incident.

Supporters of Williams decry his death as a ‘lynching’

Williams’ son, Marcellus Williams Jr., spoke with KSDK just days before his father’s scheduled execution. Despite holding out hope, he said he would be there so his father wouldn’t be alone if it came to losing his life. He stated, “This is murder.”

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo, told USA Today in a statement that Williams’ life “demonstrated how the death penalty is wielded without regard for innocence, compassion, equity, or humanity.”

She continued, “He showed us how the standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt‘ can be applied selectively, depending on who stands accused and who stands in power.”

“Tonight, Missouri lynched another innocent Black man,“ NAACP President Derrick Johnson told the outlet. “Governor Parson had the responsibility to save this innocent life, and he didn’t. The NAACP was founded in 1909 in response to the barbaric lynching of Black people in America — we were founded exactly because of people like Governor Parson who perpetuate violence against innocent Black people. We will hold Governor Parson accountable. When DNA evidence proves innocence, capital punishment is not justice — it is murder.”

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