Is Missouri A Serial Killer? Marcellus Williams, Who Prosecutors Say Is Innocent, Is Still Set To Be Executed

Despite the DNA evidence that’s long shown Marcellus Williams to be innocent of a particularly brutal murder in August of 1998, the State of Missouri is prepared to kill him Sept. 24, 2024, at 6:00 PM CST. Following is a summation of how Missouri brought Mr. Williams and all who are involved in or watching the case, to this moment.

BREAKING: Just being reported that Missouri’s Supreme Court won’t stay the execution and the Governor won’t grant clemency

Information included here has been culled from extensive review of reports from multiple entities and outlets, including but not limited to, The Innocence Project, local St. Louis and Missouri state outlets noted in the content accordingly, referenced The New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press.

The opinions, expressed in queries, at the end of at this report, are my own. 

Nightmare On St. Louis Streets

Marcellus Williams, now 55, lived in St. Louis, Missouri. By all accounts, and without dispute, he’d participated in multiple robberies in and around the seat of the county where Michael Brown was publicly executed by a white police officer who left him dead in the middle of the street for hours.

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But Mr. Williams, while serving time for an unrelated robbery, was indicted for what prosecutors labeled a robbery-murder committed on Aug. 11, 1998. Felicia Gayle, 42 on the day she was brutally slain in her gated-community home, had been a reporter for The St. Louis Dispatch. She’d been stabbed and cut with a butcher knife from her own kitchen 43 times. 

The way in which Ms. Gayle was killed—the infliction of wounds that far exceeded those necessary to murder her–is relatively rare and labeled as an overkill. Scientists have long determined that overkills are not only rare, but most often committed by men who have some sort of personal relationship (though not often familial) with the victim. This was not the case between Marcellus Williams and Felicia Gayle.

Even still, in January of 2001, based on contradictory testimony from one of Williams’ former cellmates and his ex-girlfriend who both stood to gain financially from their testimony, Williams was convicted of murdering Felicia Gayle and sentenced to death.

Yes, there are people in prison, some scheduled to be killed, who are actually innocent. There’s an entire are of law that continues to prove that.

The Innocence Project was founded in New York City in 1992 by attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, two of the earliest proponents of using DNA to defend clients. Since the organization was launched, they report that just their organization alone has overturned the convictions of 400 people who were imprisoned for serious crimes. In at least 21 of those cases, people had been sentenced to death.

And more than 60% of the time, they report, the wrongfully convicted people were Black people. That rate is more than quadruple their presentation in the United States.

In fighting for Mr. Williams life, the Innocence Project produced a comprehensive report on the evidence that should have long ago vacated Williams’ conviction and sentence. But in brief, here’s what’s critical to know right now:

1. None of the vast amount of forensic evidence left at the crime scene–including trace DNA from the murder weapon–was ever linked to Marcellus Williams.

None.

2. The current DA–and Missouri Congressman-Elect, Wesley Bell– joined the defense and his opponent during the recent election in which he prevailed, Rep. Cori Bush, in asking the Court to vacate the conviction and sentence based on evidence of innocence.

In desperation, Bell struck a deal with Williams in August that would have vacated the death sentence. Williams’ would have submitted an Alford Plea—a legal formality in which a defendant maintains their innocence, but concedes the State has enough evidence to convict. The deal would have converted his death sentence to life without the possibility of parole.

3. Williams had been scheduled to be killed twice before, in 2015 and 2017.

Those executions were stayed once by the Courts and once by the Governor’s office. By the time a new date for execution was set for Sept. 24, 2024, and after the most bizarre acts by law enforcement and other legal officials were allowed to stand, Williams, who has consistently proclaimed his innocence, saw the Alford Plea as the only way to avoid his own murder.

4. The first attempt on Williams’ life was driven by the Missouri’s Supreme Court after they  appointed a person to find the truth and he found Mr. Williams DNA was never at the crime scene, but a bunch of other DNA, was.

In 2015, Missouri’s Supreme Court, the state’s high court, stayed Williams’ execution. They appointed a special master to review the DNA evidence submitted by defense that hadn’t been allowed at trial in 2000.

In 2016, the finding was conclusive: Williams was not the source of the DNA on the murder weapon. Weirdly, although that was the actual finding, the special master made no conclusionary remarks on it. He expressed no opinion nor request for a hearing based on his own findings—which was the whole reason he conducted the investigation to begin with: to answer the question about whether or not there was evidence supporting a finding of innocence or not guilty.

There was. But no one who had the power to do something about it, did. The special master just sent his finding to Missouri’s Supreme Court–the entity that ordered him to investigate. More bizarre than even the special masters’ decision, the Court declined to review the very findings they’d ordered the guy to discover in the first place.

Instead, they simply scheduled a new date to kill Mr. Williams: Aug. 22, 2017.

5. The second attempt on Williams’ life was halted by one Republican governor. pearheaded by the current governor, who has the power to stop the murder of an innocent man

On Aug. 22, 2017, after Mr. Williams finished what was meant to be his last meal, and just a few hours before the State was prepared to kill him, then-Governor Eric Greitens stayed the execution. He refused to ignore the DNA evidence and, in staying the execution, also assembled a Board of Inquiry, headed by a Black woman, to investigate the potential innocence of Mr. Williams. In accordance with Missouri law, a stay of this sort must hold until the Board completes its investigation. That’s not what happened. 

…a new governor, Mike Parson, decided, apparently unilaterally, to dissolve the Board. He did not advise the Board he would do so beforehand–perhaps because it violated state law

.

In June of 2023, as the investigation was still ongoing and no finding had yet been issued, a new governor, Mike Parson, decided, apparently unilaterally, to dissolve the Board. He did not advise the Board he would do so beforehand–perhaps because it violated state law. No execution was legally allowed to proceed during a stay and the stay was to remain in place until the Board of Inquiry offered its finding.

But people willing to kill are arguably willing to break other laws. To that extent, Parson’s decision may have been predictable. Illegal, but predictable–as was State Attorney, Andrew Bailey’s decision to immediately find a new day to kill Mr. Williams whose DNA was not only not found on the murder weapon, but found nowhere at the forensic–rich crime scene.

The State’s Attorney has a habit of blocking the release of people found innocent

Yesterday, just before noon on the East Coast, The New York Times reported that “Mr. Bailey and his recent predecessors have routinely objected to wrongful conviction claims. Mr. Bailey, a Republican…[in at least two other cases]…,moved to block the release of prisoners who had been declared innocent by judges.”

Williams’ team filed suit against Parson’s following his dissolution of the Board. They cited multiple reasons, including his breaking of the law. The County judge who heard the concurred with them and dismissed the attempt by the governor to dismiss it. But the state’s Supreme Court–the same one that didn’t consider the DNA evidence they’d ordered the special master to find–decided to intervene. They protected the Parson by dismissing Williams’ lawsuit.

For at least these reasons, Mr. Williams is, at this writing, set to be killed tomorrow at 6:00 PM, Central.

Questions Black People Everywhere and Even Just Halfway Honest People Anywhere Should Be Asking 

How is that the actions of multiple people working in concert across multiple offices in the State of Missouri amount to anything less than a criminal conspiracy? 

The actions of the original prosecutors, the Supreme Court, the special master potentially and the current State’s Attorney most certainly appear to violate the word and intent of federal RICO laws, created in 1970 to hold otherwise untouchable lawbreakers to account.

Why was Marcellus Williams’ conviction not overturned for its violation of constitutionally protected rights? 

The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process clause guarantees the right to be tried before a jury of peers. Williams was tried in St. Louis County by 11 white people and a single African American. The original prosecutors had illegally used race to strike Black jurors.

In court today, the Missouri Independent reported at roughly 1:00 pm Central, that Williams’ attorney, Jonathan Potts argued that the original prosecutor at trial, Keith Larner, had even “…said the quiet part out loud.” Potts referred to Larner’s illegal racial bias in jury selection. At least one juror was excluded because the prosecutor said that he looked like he could be related to Mr. Williams.

Why are victims’ statements and feelings used to drive prosecutorial arguments but ignored when they diverge from them?

Felicia Gayle’s family does not support Williams’ execution.

Would this be happening if Ms. Gayle was not a white woman and Mr. Williams a Black man? 

The death penalty is most often used when the victim is white and the accused, Black.

Why are Black advocates charged with resolving issues in a couple of years that white people created and have maintained for centuries?

White philanthropic “allies” who were so incensed about America’s racism and specifically as it manifested in the nation’s punishment system, just four years ago in 2020, have reduced their funding for advocacy on these matters dramatically–in some cases by half or more, prompting even Bryan Stevenson, founder and director of the Equal Justice Initiative, to opine that he does not believe support will return to 2020 levels.

He only believes that Black people and people generally who truly love justice, will keep working regardless of external supports. 

Of course he knows, as the many of us know, that that should never have to be the case, especially in a nation of such unearned and ordinary wealth and privilege in so few hands.

Here’s what you can do right now

Marcellus Williams’ case has broad bi-partisan support. Please go here if you want to lend yours, remembering that Governor Parson has the power to either save a life or take one.

This story will be updated accordingly over the next 24 hours.

SEE MORE:

Chris Dunn, Wrongfully Convicted 34 Years Ago, Finally Free. St. Louis Legal Officials Tried To Keep Him Locked Up Despite Innocence

Exonerated! Wrongly Convicted Black Folks Whose Names Have Been Cleared

 

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