11 months ago
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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A Missouri antheral was executed Tuesday for breaking into a woman's location and sidesplitting her, contempt calls by her household and the prosecutor's bureau that enactment him connected decease enactment to fto him service retired the remainder of his beingness successful prison.
Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted successful the 1998 sidesplitting of Lisha Gayle, who was repeatedly stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.
Williams' hopes of having his condemnation commuted to beingness successful situation suffered dual setbacks Monday when, astir simultaneously, Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied him clemency and the Missouri Supreme Court declined to assistance him a enactment of execution. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Tuesday.
Williams was enactment to decease contempt questions his attorneys raised implicit assemblage enactment astatine his proceedings and the handling of grounds successful the case. His clemency petition focused heavy connected however Gayle's relatives wanted Williams' condemnation commuted to beingness without the anticipation of parole.
"The household defines closure arsenic Marcellus being allowed to live," the petition stated. "Marcellus' execution is not necessary."
Last month, Gayle's relatives gave their blessings to an statement betwixt the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney's bureau and Williams' attorneys to commute the condemnation to beingness successful prison. But acting connected an entreaty from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey's Office, the authorities Supreme Court nullified the agreement.
Williams was among decease enactment inmates successful 5 states who were scheduled to beryllium enactment to decease successful the span of a week - an unusually precocious fig that defies a yearslong diminution successful the usage and enactment of the decease punishment successful the U.S. The archetypal was carried retired Friday successful South Carolina. Texas was besides slated to execute a captive connected Tuesday evening.
Gayle, 42, was a societal idiosyncratic and erstwhile St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Prosecutors astatine Williams'trial said helium broke into her location connected Aug. 11, 1998, heard the ablution moving and recovered a ample butcher knife. Gayle was stabbed 43 times erstwhile she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband's laptop were stolen.
Authorities said Williams stole a overgarment to conceal humor connected his shirt. His woman asked him wherefore helium would deterioration a overgarment connected a blistery day. She said she aboriginal saw the purse and laptop successful his car and that Williams sold the machine a time oregon 2 later.
Prosecutors besides cited grounds from Henry Cole, who shared a compartment with Williams successful 1999 portion Williams was jailed connected unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the sidesplitting and provided details astir it.
Williams' attorneys responded that the woman and Cole were some convicted of felonies and wanted a $10,000 reward. They said that fingerprints, a bloody shoeprint, hairsbreadth and different grounds astatine the transgression country didn't lucifer Williams'.
A transgression country researcher had testified the slayer wore gloves.
Tuesday marked the 3rd clip Williams had faced execution. He was little than a week distant from lethal injection successful January 2015 erstwhile the authorities Supreme Court called it off, allowing clip for his attorneys to prosecute further DNA testing.
Williams was hours from being executed successful August 2017 erstwhile then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay. Greitens appointed a sheet of retired judges to analyse the case. But that sheet ne'er reached a conclusion.
Questions astir DNA grounds besides led St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to petition a proceeding challenging Williams' guilt. But days earlier the Aug. 21 hearing, caller investigating showed that DNA connected the weapon belonged to members of the prosecutor's bureau who handled it without gloves aft the archetypal transgression laboratory tests.
Without DNA grounds pointing to immoderate alternate suspect, Midwest Innocence Project attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutor's office: Williams would participate a new, no-contest plea to first-degree execution successful speech for a caller condemnation of beingness successful situation without parole. A no-contest plea isn't an admittance of guilt but is treated arsenic specified for the intent of sentencing.
Judge Bruce Hilton signed off, arsenic did Gayle's family. But Bailey appealed, and the authorities Supreme Court blocked the statement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary hearing, which took spot past month.
Hilton ruled connected Sept. 12 that the first-degree execution condemnation and decease condemnation would stand, noting that Williams' arguments each had been antecedently rejected. That determination was upheld Monday by the authorities Supreme Court.
Attorneys for Williams, who was Black, besides challenged the fairness of his trial, peculiarly the information that lone 1 of the 12 jurors was Black. Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project said the authoritative successful the case, Keith Larner, removed six of 7 Black prospective jurors.
Larner testified astatine the August proceeding that helium struck 1 imaginable Black juror partially due to the fact that helium looked excessively overmuch similar Williams - a connection that Williams' attorneys asserted showed improper radical bias.
Larner contended that the assemblage enactment process was fair.
Williams was the 3rd Missouri inmate enactment to decease this twelvemonth and the 100th since the authorities resumed usage of the decease punishment successful 1989.
AP writer Mark Sherman contributed from Washington. Salter reported from O'Fallon, Missouri.
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