After Attorney General’s Request for Execution Date, St. Louis County Prosecutor Files Motion to Vacate Marcellus Williams’ Death Sentence

On January 26, 2024, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in the St. Louis County Circuit Court, ask­ing the Court to vacate Marcellus Williams’ death sentence. 

Mr. Williams was sen­tenced to death in 2001 for the 1998 killing of local news­pa­per reporter, Felicia Gayle, but has main­tained his inno­cence through­out his incar­cer­a­tion. No phys­i­cal evi­dence tied Mr. Williams to the crime and the tri­al court judge refused to allow DNA test­ing of some of the evi­dence col­lect­ed from the crime scene. In 2015, Mr. Williams was even­tu­al­ly giv­en per­mis­sion for DNA test­ing of the mur­der weapon, which revealed a male DNA pro­file incon­sis­tent with that of Mr. Williams. Following the rules of a 2021 Missouri law that grants pros­e­cu­tors the author­i­ty to inter­vene in cas­es when there is ​“infor­ma­tion that the con­vict­ed per­son may be inno­cent,” Mr. Bell filed his motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ sen­tence. In his motion, Mr. Bell not­ed that ​“this nev­er-before-con­sid­ered evi­dence, when paired with the rel­a­tive pauci­ty of oth­er, cred­i­ble evi­dence sup­port­ing guilt, as well as addi­tion­al con­sid­er­a­tions of inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion, casts inex­orable doubt on Mr. Williams’s con­vic­tion and sen­tence.” Mr. Bell has asked the Court to sched­ule a hear­ing to con­sid­er the DNA evi­dence and oth­er evi­den­tial flaws in the state’s case against Mr. Williams. 

Mr. Bell’s office con­tin­ues comb­ing through the police inves­ti­ga­tion of Ms. Gayle’s death to deter­mine whether the inves­ti­ga­tion was ​“inten­tion­al­ly or reck­less­ly defi­cient” and is look­ing into an ​“alter­nate per­pe­tra­tor.” The motion also notes that Mr. Bell believes it is his job to ask the Court to ​“cor­rect this man­i­fest injus­tice by seek­ing a hear­ing on the new­found evi­dence and the integri­ty of Mr. Williams’ conviction.” 

This motion was filed short­ly after the Missouri Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, asked the Missouri Supreme Court to set an exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Williams. Attorneys for Mr. Williams, work­ing for the Innocence Project, said that they ​“are con­fi­dent that any full and fair process will head to the inevitable con­clu­sion – that Mr. Williams is inno­cent and his con­vic­tion must be overturned.” 

St. Louis Police sus­pect­ed Ms. Gayle’s mur­der was a rob­bery gone wrong and the crime scene details matched those of a crime that occurred just weeks ear­li­er. Law enforce­ment iden­ti­fied a ​“prime sus­pect,” but no arrests were made until a mon­e­tary reward was offered. Thereafter, a jail­house infor­mant, Henry Cole, told police a sto­ry about how Marcellus Williams, a for­mer cell­mate of his, con­fessed to killing Ms. Gayle. Police lat­er secured anoth­er infor­mant, Mr. Williams’ for­mer girl­friend, Laura Asaro, who told police that Mr. Williams killed Ms. Gayle. Both Mr. Cole and Ms. Asaro were fac­ing unre­lat­ed crim­i­nal charges and stood to ben­e­fit from tes­ti­fy­ing for the state. 

The pros­e­cu­tion relied heav­i­ly on tes­ti­mo­ny from both Mr. Cole and Ms. Asaro, which shift­ed through­out the course of their ques­tion­ing. Their tes­ti­mo­ny also con­tra­dict­ed the phys­i­cal evi­dence col­lect­ed from the crime scene. Ms. Asaro claimed Mr. Williams had scratch­es on his face the day fol­low­ing the mur­der, but no for­eign DNA was dis­cov­ered under Ms. Gayle’s fin­ger­nails. Additionally, bloody shoeprints at the crime scene were a dif­fer­ent size than Mr. Williams’ feet and the fin­ger­prints lift­ed were unus­able and nev­er giv­en to the defense to ana­lyze before they were destroyed. 

Despite the DNA test­ing in 2015, the Court refused to allow Mr. Williams to enter the new­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence dur­ing post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings and sched­uled an exe­cu­tion for August 2017. The Midwest Innocence Project, which rep­re­sents Mr. Williams, asked then-Governor Eric Greitens to halt the exe­cu­tion. Gov. Greitens issued an exec­u­tive order stay­ing Mr. Williams’ exe­cu­tion and empan­el­ing a five-mem­ber board of for­mer judges to ​“assess the cred­i­bil­i­ty and weight of all the evi­dence.” Per Missouri law, the board is required to pro­duce a final report for to the gov­er­nor ​“as to whether or not [Mr.] Williams should be exe­cut­ed, or his sen­tence of death com­mut­ed.” In June 2023, how­ev­er, Governor Mike Parson dis­solved the board of inquiry before a report was released. Attorneys for Mr. Williams imme­di­ate­ly chal­lenged the governor’s attempt to dis­band the board. 

In his motion to the Court, Mr. Bell alleges that Mr. Williams’ tri­al attor­neys pro­vid­ed inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel by fail­ing to call wit­ness­es to impeach the cred­i­bil­i­ty of Mr. Cole and Ms. Asaro. Mr. Williams’ con­vic­tion was also the result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, as pros­e­cu­tors ille­gal­ly struck sev­er­al Black jurors from ser­vice. During jury selec­tion, the pros­e­cu­tion said they did not reject a Black juror because of his race, but rather because he ​“looked very sim­i­lar” to Mr. Williams. The pros­e­cu­tor also claimed he struck the juror because he worked for the postal sys­tem and postal employ­ees tend to be ​“very lib­er­al,” yet he did not strike a white postal employ­ee. The pros­e­cu­tion team respon­si­ble for han­dling Mr. Williams’ con­vic­tion has been involved in at least two oth­er death penal­ty con­vic­tions that have been reversed by the Missouri Supreme Court.