Day Before Execution, Missouri Supreme Court Considers Marcellus Williams Case

By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff WriterMissouri is scheduled to execute Marcellus Williams on Sept. 24 for a crime he did not commit, according to the Innocence Project. Williams, 55, was convicted of murdering Felicia Gayle, a former newspaper reporter who was found stabbed to death in her home in 1998.The lack of DNA evidence has raised significant doubts about Williams’s conviction and has been central to his defense. In 2017, then-Governor Eric Greitens issued a stay of execution based on tests that found no trace of Williams’s DNA on the murder weapon.“The state destroyed or corrupted evidence that could conclusively prove his innocence, and the available DNA and forensic evidence does not match him. There is far too much uncertainty in this case to allow Mr. Williams to be executed, especially since the victim’s family believes life without parole is the appropriate sentence,” the Innocence Project stated.St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate Williams’s conviction, believing that forensic evidence excluded him from the crime. During an evidentiary hearing on Aug. 28, Bell’s office acknowledged that the previous prosecutor had made constitutional errors that contributed to Williams’s unreliable conviction and death sentence, including mishandling...