Marcellus Wiliams Slated For Execution Again After St. Louis County Judge Rejects Latest Effort

Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton declined to throw out Williams' conviction and he is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24

Marcellus Williams has been on death row since being convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle. He was scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24 until he made a plea deal with prosecutors to be resentenced to life without parole. The next day, the Missouri Supreme Court nullified that agreement and ordered a hearing on Williams’ innocence claim. Now, a St. Louis County judge has rejected the plea deal, and the execution is back on.

According to St. Louis Public Radio, Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton declined to throw out Williams’ conviction, clearing the way for the state to put the convicted prisoner to death.

“There is no basis for a court to find that Williams is innocent, and no court has made such a finding,” Hilton wrote in his opinion. “Williams is guilty of first-degree murder and has been sentenced to death.”

Williams, who has always claimed his innocence, was scheduled to have the sentence redone on Aug. 22 when he would have entered a no-contest plea to first-degree murder in the 1998 death of Lisha Gayle based on a ruling on Aug. 21 by St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton. The judge approved the plan, maintaining that Williams was innocent, but the plea acknowledged that the evidence was sufficient for a conviction.

After Hilton approved the deal, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey appealed right away, stating that a circuit court did not have the authority to override a capital murder sentence. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Bailey ordering the judge to “set aside said consent order and judgment and file notice with this Court that you will take action … including holding the evidentiary hearing previously scheduled and anticipated.”

Previously, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell asked the judge to vacate Williams’ murder conviction based on DNA testing after it was discovered that other DNA was found on the knife that was used to kill Gayle. A new DNA test report was released earlier this week stating that the handling of the murder weapon years ago by a former assistant prosecutor and a former investigator in the case allegedly contaminated the evidence so much that it was of no value to Williams’ case. Based on that report, prosecutors decided to reach an agreement with Williams.

At Williams’ original trial, prosecutors stated that he broke into Gayle’s home on Aug. 11, 1998, and heard water running in the shower and found a large butcher knife. Gayle was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were taken. Gayle was a white social worker who previously worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.