Hey Missouri! It Would Be So Great If You Didn't Execute An Innocent Man Next Week!

Someone else's DNA was found at the scene, but the state is going to kill Marcellus Williams anyway.

Marcellus Williams (Image courtesy of Marcellus’s legal team).

Marcellus Williams is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, September 25.

This is despite the fact that there was a whole lot of forensic evidence at the scene of the crime and the DNA they found was not a match for him, the victim, or anyone the victim knew.

This is despite a recent evidentiary hearing in which the prosecutor who handled the case admitted to purposely excluding Black jurors in this case as well as in others — which means that the trial was constitutionally unfair.

This is despite the fact that the current prosecuting attorney believes Williams is innocent and that his trial was unfair.

This is despite the fact that the family of the victim does not want him executed.

This is despite the fact that he is almost definitely innocent of the crime he is about to die for.

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As we explained back in January, when St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate Williams’s conviction, Williams was sentenced to death in August of 2001 for the stabbing murder of reporter Felicia “Lisha” Gayle in her gated community home in University City, a suburb of St. Louis. There was almost no evidence to justify his conviction beyond the stories of a jailhouse snitch and Williams’s ex-girlfriend, both of whom were paid for their testimonies and promised leniency in their own cases.

The case was full of discrepancies, such as:

• There were two grey pubic hairs found at the scene that did not match Williams, Gayle, or her husband, Daniel Picus.

• Another woman had been stabbed to death in a similar incident, with the knife also left in her body, just weeks earlier.

• There were possibly two sets of bloody footprints at the scene, neither of which were the same size as Williams’s feet.

• Cole and the prosecution said Williams wore gloves, and yet investigators found bloody fingerprints at the scene — evidence of which was destroyed before the defense could have them analyzed, as the prosecution had deemed them “unusable.”

• The informants’ testimony changed multiple times and frequently clashed with the crime scene evidence — for instance ex-girlfriend Laura Asaro claimed Williams had scratches on his face, but there was no DNA under Gayle’s nails.

And that’s not all of them! But Missouri Governor Mike Parsons is set to kill him anyway.

There is, however, a lot of support for Williams from other politicians in the state, including from Rep. Cori Bush, who sent a letter to Parsons demanding clemency.

“I urge you to grant Mr. Williams clemency for his wrongful conviction of the 1998 stabbing of Felicia Gayle. By its own admission, the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s office engaged in gross misconduct in the prosecution of Mr. Williams’ case, violating his right to counsel and his right to due process under the Missouri State Constitution and the United States Constitution,” Bush wrote. “Proceeding with the execution of Marcellus Williams would be a grave injustice and would do serious and lasting harm.”

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The fact is, there is so much more to be lost by executing an innocent person than there could ever, ever be gained by executing a guilty one. What does the state gain here when even the victim’s family doesn’t want this?

The Innocence Project is asking people to call Governor Parsons and demand that Williams not be executed next week — he can be reached at 417-373-3400. It’s worth a shot!

PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!

St. Louis Prosecutor Would Like To Free Marcellus Williams Instead Of Executing Him, *Just Because He's Innocent*

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