Marcellus Williams was executed Tuesday September 26th at 6 p.m. at Bonne-Terre State Prison in Jefferson County for a 1998 murder.
Williams was convicted of the murder of 43-year-old Lisha Gayle back in 2001. Gayle was a former police reporter, and was in her St. Louis home when a burglar came in and fatally stabbed her 43 times with a kitchen knife.
With the DNA evidence tainted by what was at the time considered proper procedure, the Midwest Innocence Project attorneys came to a settlement with the prosecutor’s office. The settlement stated Williams would enter a new no-contest plea to first-degree murder, in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole.
This agreement was good enough for not only the Judge, and Williams lawyers, but also for the victim’s family. It was due to the Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s urging against the compromise that the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the agreement.
How can someone think it is anything but cruel and unusual to follow through on a death sentence, when even the victim’s family and the original prosecutor believe the death penalty is not the answer? During the clemency petition, Gayle’s family said that they “define closure as Marcellus being allowed to live” says USA Today.
Williams had been set to be executed twice before, both resulting in a halt due to further investigations into evidence. August 2017 was the first set execution date and it was “just hours before his scheduled lethal injection, then Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay after testing showed that DNA on the knife matched an unknown person” according to AP News. “Greitens appointed a panel of retired judges to examine the case, but that panel never reached a conclusion” reported First Alert 4. Then when that avenue was denied upon further studying, “Williams was less than a week away from execution in January 2015 when the state Supreme Court called it off, allowing time for his attorneys to pursue additional DNA testing”also reported First Alert 4.
Both times, the evidence in question was further tested, and never did the DNA point to Williams. An argument made was that it was learned that the killer used gloves on the knife which is why it never matched Williams DNA. However, what isn’t so frequently mentioned is that there was also a footprint, and hair strands left behind, none of those ever tested to match Williams.
However, what connected Williams to the case was the “victim’s purse and her husband’s laptop were found in Williams’ vehicle. Further, Williams’ girlfriend and cellmate both testified Williams confessed to them,” according to the Supreme Court of Missouri.
However, it should be noted that both witnesses came forth shortly after Gayle’s family put out a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in Gayle’s case. Additionally, the $10,000 reward was put up around the nine-month mark of Lisha’s murder when the police had not named a suspect. The cellmate claimed $5,000 in the end whereas Williams’ ex-girlfriend Laura Asaro, did not end up taking the money.
“Williams’ attorneys argued that both informants stood to benefit from their cooperation with prosecutors, and that their stories sometimes changed or conflicted with the other details about the killing. Both witnesses have since died” USA Today reports.
The mercy, however, ran out Tuesday, when the Governor himself said he would not grant Williams clemency, and the Missouri Supreme Court denied a request to cancel the execution so a lower court could re-evaluate a point about the case. The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected the appeal.
What is mind blowing about this case is that Wesley Bell, the original prosecutor, has since changed his stance on the case stating “Even for those who disagree on the death penalty, when there is a shadow of doubt of any defendant’s guilt, the irreversible punishment of execution should not be an option. As the St. Louis County prosecutor, our office has questions about Mr. Williams guilt, but also about the integrity of his conviction. For those reasons we will continue to do everything in our power to save his life.” Bell said in an interview.
However, what makes this situation further disturbing is that the victims family has stated multiple times that the death penalty was not what they desired for Marcellus.
“Missouri Department of Corrections communications director Karen Pojmann noted no witnesses for Gayle’s family attended the execution; the family had previously said they opposed executing Williams” CBS News claims.
This is not the justice system I was taught in school. I learned of the spirit of the law, how that was intended to guide the justices through decision making that fell in the grey. This is beyond disappointing that this man’s life was not spared. If the victim’s family, and the original prosecuting office both are advocating for the death penalty to be removed in this case, that should have mattered more to the courts than holding onto technicalities to stay ‘right’.
Is the brutal murder of a woman not enough death? We should leave the Code of Hammurabi back in history where we left it, an eye for an eye is too barbaric for these times, especially when the family of the victim has repeatedly stated they do not wish to see a man die for the crimes he’s been convicted of. Why further traumatize the victim’s family by adding more death to what’s already been more than anyone should have to deal with?
