ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Marcellus Williams, a man on death row in the 1998 death of Lisha Gayle, is scheduled to be executed for the murder in just a few days without intervention.
Williams is scheduled to die by lethal injection in Missouri on Sept. 24, 2024.
Attorneys for Marcellus Williams filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking a stay of the execution that could stall the execution and allow further examination, if granted.
Missouri Attorney Andrew Bailey has since filed a motion asking the Supreme Court to deny a stay request. The high court has yet to announce a decision on a possible stay.
On Friday, Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush delivered a speech on the U.S. House floor on Friday urging Gov. Mike Parson to stop the execution of Williams and grant clemency.
She said Friday on the floor, in part:
“St. Louis and I rise today to say that state-sanctioned violence has no place in a humane society.
Next Tuesday, Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams is scheduled to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit. Despite credible evidence of Williams’ innocence and mass scrutiny over the fairness of his trial, Missouri Governor Mike Parson and the courts have yet to stop an innocent man from being executed.
Gov. Parson has the power to decide for or against a stay of an execution, but if the high court intervenes, it prevents him from exercising his clemency power.
Last month, Williams agreed to take an Alford plea deal where he would spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole but would avoid execution. However, Bailey opposed that deal and went to the Missouri Supreme Court to halt the Alford plea. The deal was ultimately rejected, allowing the execution to proceed as scheduled.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell originally filed a motion to vacate Williams’ conviction last winter based on DNA analysis done on the suspected murder weapon, which was not available when Williams was originally convicted.
Testing revealed that Williams’ DNA was not on the knife used in the murder, leading some to argue that he was not the killer. But then questions were raised about the DNA evidence being mishandled and contaminated by original members of the prosecution team.
Through the rejected plea deal in August, Williams maintained his innocence, but acknowledged that the prosecution had enough evidence to likely secure a conviction. An Alford plea is often used when there is little evidence of being acquitted.
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.
Williams was originally set to die back in 2017, but then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens halted the execution and ordered an investigation into DNA evidence.
