CLAYTON, Mo. – Missouri’s highest court halted a scheduled Alford plea for a death row inmate fighting to prove his innocence a month before his execution.
Marcellus Williams was to appear before St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton on Thursday morning as part of a plea agreement. Williams’ lawyers said that by accepting the Alford plea—an admission that prosecutors have enough evidence to obtain a guilty verdict—they would have more time to prove their client’s innocence.
Williams, 55, was convicted of first-degree murder in the August 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle during a robbery of her suburban St. Louis home.
He was hours away from execution in August 2017 when he was given a reprieve. Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens halted the process, citing that testing unavailable at the time of the killing showed that DNA on the knife matched someone else, not Williams.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion last winter to vacate Williams’ murder conviction. Bell cited new DNA evidence when filing the motion and said he believed Williams was not involved in Gayle’s death.
A Missouri law that took effect in 2021 allowed prosecuting attorneys, like Bell, to file a motion to vacate a conviction if they believe an inmate could be innocent or was otherwise erroneously convicted.
Before his murder conviction, investigators claimed that Williams broke a windowpane to get inside Gayle’s home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower, and found a large butcher knife. When Gayle came downstairs, she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen. Gayle was a social worker who previously worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
