The Missouri Supreme Court has set an execution date for Marcellus Williams, who was sentenced to death in 2001 for the 1998 murder of former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Felicia Anne Gayle Picus during the robbery of her University City home.
Marcellus Williams (courtesy; Missouri Department of Corrections)
Williams is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection January 28 at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center at Bonne Terre.
Williams became a suspect in the crime after he told a fellow inmate at the St. Louis City workhouse he had committed the murder. That inmate later told University City Police, who then interviewed Williams’ girlfriend and learned he had also told her he committed the murder. They were also able to recover a Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator belonging to Gayle from Williams’ grandfather’s car, and recovered a laptop computer Williams stole from the man he later sold it to.
Court documents say Williams broke in while Gayle was taking a shower. He went to her kitchen and got a butcher knife, and when she got out of the shower he stabbed and cut her 43 times.
If his execution proceeds, Williams would be the 13th man put to death by the State of Missouri since November, 2013 and the first in 2015.