Prosecutors, Jurors, and the Victim’s Family Want His Execution Tossed. Will it Matter?

In Marcellus Williams’ clemency package, his mother describes him as the only mistake she’s ever made. His father left him, too, unwanted. Now, on the brink of execution for a murder he says he did not commit, 55-year-old Williams has a legion in his corner. No one wants him to die — not the jurors who decided his fate years back, not the prosecutor’s office, not even the victim’s family. The only entity pushing for his execution, it seems, is the state of Missouri. 

“The prosecutor’s office, the very office that secured the conviction, that secured the death sentence, now says that there was error in the case,” says Tricia Rojo Bushnell, one of Williams’ Innocence Project lawyers. “They’ve conceded error, both in [terms of] racial discrimination, jury selection, and the contamination of evidence. But the state is still seeking to execute him. That’s a really troubling phenomenon for all of us. What’s the point?”

Williams was initially convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 2003 for the 1998 murder of social worker and reporter Felicia Gayle in the suburbs of St. Louis. Prosecutors alleged that Williams robbed Gayle, then stabbed her to death, hiding her purse and husband’s laptop in the trunk of his car. His girlfriend testified that she discovered the damning evidence, and that Williams confessed to the murder to her. The prosecution also alleged that Williams confessed to his cellmate, Henry Cole, while in jail for unrelated charges. The defense argued, though, that Cole and the girlfriend were felons who were out for the $10,000 reward money. Regardless, Williams was found guilty and sentenced to die in August 2017.

Hours before the scheduled execution, then-Gov. Eric Greitens (R) called for the process to be stayed in light of newly discovered DNA testing on the murder weapon, which suggested that an unknown man was, in fact, the killer — not Williams. (There was no other physical evidence tying him to the crime, the defense said.) “To carry out the death penalty, the people of Missouri must have confidence in the judgment of guilt,” Greitens said in the statement. Greitens then formed a Board of Inquiry to look into the new information.
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However, in 2023, current Gov. Mike Parson (R) — who did not provide comment to Rolling Stone — dissolved that Board of Inquiry. “This board was established nearly six years ago, and it is time to move forward,” he said. “We could stall and delay for another six years, deferring justice, leaving a victim’s family in limbo, and solving nothing. This administration won’t do that. Withdrawing the order allows the process to proceed within the judicial system, and, once the due process of law has been exhausted, everyone will receive certainty.” It’s unknown currently what, if anything, that board found. Williams’ Innocence Project reps allege that the work was not finished. Regardless, Williams was given a new execution date of Sept. 24.

Williams’ team has continued to fight for him — even when it was discovered that the knife in question had been mishandled, and therefore the DNA evidence was inconclusive. As such, at an Aug. 21 hearing, prosecutors and the defense reached a compromise, deciding that Williams would enter a first-degree murder plea in exchange for life without parole, per the Associated Press. Both the judge and Gayle’s family signed off, but, due to the urgings of Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey — whom Parson appointed — the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered an evidentiary hearing in late August. “They refer to the evidence in this case as being weak. It was overwhelming,” Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane said at the time. He did not return Rolling Stone’s request for comment.

On Sept. 12, that same judge upheld the death penalty for Williams, writing: “Every claim of error Williams has asserted on direct appeal, post-conviction review, and habeas review has been rejected by Missouri’s courts. There is no basis for a court to find that Williams is innocent, and no court has made such a finding. Williams is guilty of first-degree murder, and has been sentenced to death.”
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The battle continues, though. The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office filed an appeal Monday evening, while the governor — who had ended the stay on Williams’ execution, citing “a victim’s family in limbo” — received a clemency petition. Rojo Bushnell says that while Gayle’s family is not certain that Williams is innocent, they don’t want him to be executed. (They declined to talk to Rolling Stone.) It’s actually a fallacy that most victims want those who harmed them — or their family members — dead. The Atlantic surveyed 10,000 such people for a 2023 report that found that “victims are generally no tougher on crime than non-victims; they prefer rehabilitation over tough justice, even though they’ve had firsthand experience with crime and the criminal-justice system.”

Even jurors recanted their past decision in the clemency petition. “After considering this new DNA evidence, it is something I would have considered at the guilt phase and it may have made a difference with the jury,” the foreperson said. An alternate juror opined: “Having reviewed this information, I am disturbed that none of this was presented at trial and that the jury never had the opportunity to consider it. . . . I strongly believe that had this information been provided to the jury, it would have made a difference in the verdict and sentence.”

Attorneys also asked for the federal court to reconsider a previously denied appeal that alleged that Williams’ jury was racially uneven. They wrote in their filing that the state used most of its peremptory strikes to block out six of seven potential jurors who were Black. Ultimately, the jury comprised 11 white jurors and one Black juror, the lawyers wrote in a filing on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Williams’ lawyers also filed a petition calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case and stay his execution.

“The execution of an innocent person is a tragic and irreversible failure of the justice system,” Williams’ lawyers told Rolling Stone in a statement. “As a society, clemency exists to ensure that, even if the court system fails, our elected leaders will not. When the life of an innocent person is at stake, our elected leaders must honor their clemency obligations and protect the public’s confidence in our justice system by careful consideration of all evidence, old and new. But Mr. Williams’ chance at clemency was taken away from him, so we have turned to the Supreme Court for their intervention.”

Williams is one of five men scheduled to be executed over the next week — and if he indeed dies on the 24th, he will be the 14th man put to death in the U.S. this year. His would-be execution comes at a crucial time for the death penalty in America — an election year. Former President Donald Trump is a huge supporter of executions; in a previous Rolling Stone report, a former White House official alleged that the current Republican candidate would fantasize about killing members of gangs and drug cartels: “Fucking kill them all,” he would say. “An eye for an eye.” “They need to be eradicated, not jailed,” he once said. 

Trump is also a big fan of the firing squad, which, along with the electric chair, is now considered an acceptable form of capital punishment in the U.S. That’s largely because some drug companies have refused to provide drugs needed for lethal injection, in part because the method has the highest rate of botched executions bar none.
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Meanwhile, the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris — once a critic of the death penalty — has seemingly gone silent on the topic, even after President Joe Biden promised in 2020 to stop federal executions and propose legislation to abolish the death penalty at the state level. The Democratic Party platform this year, for the first time since 2004, lacks any mention of the death penalty. The campaign has not returned several requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Williams is faring the best he can while he waits for the governor to either put a halt to his death or usher him toward the chamber  — or for the Supreme Court to stop it. “He has done other things in his past that he’s not proud of,” Rojo Bushnell says. “Who he is today, though, is a kind person who cares about people, who wants to help people be the best version of themselves. He’s just such a great reminder that we get to decide. We have the option to become who we want to be.”