A death row inmate has been executed for the murder of a woman during a home invasion, despite the prosecutor, victim’s family, and Richard Branson calling for his life to be spared.
Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted of the 1998 killing of Felicia ‘Lisha’ Gayle, who was stabbed more than 40 times during a burglary at her home in St Louis, Missouri.
He was killed by lethal injection yesterday, September 24.
His final words were: “All Praise Be To Allah In Every Situation”.
High-profile figures including British entrepreneur, Richard Branson were among those calling for a reprieve.
Speaking to the BBC, Branson revealed he had spent part of the day focused on the Williams case.
“He’s an innocent person,” Branson said. “Even the prosecuting council have told the governor they should not, this man is innocent.”
Branson also wrote a post on his blog, calling for Governor Mike Parson to step in and stop the “killing of an innocent man on his watch”
Branson wrote: “While investigators found plenty of forensic evidence at the crime scene, none of it could be linked to Mr. Williams. His conviction was entirely based on the inconsistent and unverified testimony of two incentivised witnesses.
“Throughout this ordeal, Mr Williams has been maintaining his innocence. And in 2016, DNA testing did confirm Mr. Williams was not the source of the male DNA found on the murder weapon.”
Williams’s execution was one of five taking place in the US in the space of just a week – the highest number in two decades.
His last meal included chicken wings and tater tots.
As Williams lay awaiting execution, he appeared to chat with a spiritual advisor seated next to him.
His chest heaved about a half dozen times after the lethal injection was administered, and he showed no further movement.
Williams’ son and two lawyers watched from another room. No one was present on behalf of the victim’s family.
“Tonight, we all bear witness to Missouri’s grotesque exercise of state power,” one of his attorneys, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, said in a statement. “Let it not be in vain. This should never happen, and we must not let it continue.”
Williams’s legal team had argued there were concerns over the handling of his case, with black jurors wrongly excluded from his trial.
They also said there was no forensic evidence linking him to the scene and that the murder weapon had been mishandled, raising questions over DNA evidence.
More than a million petitions requesting a stay of execution were delivered to the office of Missouri’s Republican Governor Mike Parson.
The NAACP had been among those urging Parson to cancel the execution.
“Tonight, Missouri lynched another innocent Black man,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.
Innocence Project wrote: “Tonight, Missouri executed an innocent man. Our hearts are with Marcellus and his loved ones.”
Williams was among death row inmates in five states who were scheduled to be put to death in the span of a week — an unusually high number that defies a yearslong decline in the use and support of the death penalty in the US.
The first was carried out Friday, September 20, in South Carolina. Texas was also slated to execute a prisoner on Tuesday evening.
It was the third time Williams faced execution.
He got reprieves in 2015 and 2017, but his last-ditch efforts this time were futile.
Parson and the state Supreme Court rejected his appeals in quick succession Monday, September 23, and the US Supreme Court declined to intervene hours before he was put to death.
According to local media reports, Williams did sell a laptop computer that was stolen from Gayle’s home, but the local prosecutor Wesley Bell said there was evidence that he had received the computer from his girlfriend. Both witnesses – his girlfriend and Cole – died in the intervening years.
But, a report by The Associated Press, Williams’s defence also argued that both the girlfriend and Henry Cole had felony convictions and were seeking a $10,000 reward. They also noted that other evidence such as a bloody shoeprint and hair found at the crime scene did not match Williams’s.
The governor said he hoped the execution brings finality to a case that “languished for decades, re-victimising Ms Gayle’s family over and over again”.
“No juror nor judge has ever found Williams’ innocence claim to be credible,” Parson said in a statement.
(BBC, LIB. Photo: Potosi Correctional Center, Missouri Department of Corrections, Innocence Project, Reuters)