The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to stop the execution of a Missouri man scheduled to die by lethal injection in Bonne Terre on Tuesday. Marcellus Williams has been convicted in the 1998 stabbing death of a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Missouri NAACP Executive Director Rod Chapel tells Missourinet lawyers for Williams allege that DNA evidence found on the knife used to stab the victim was not Williams’s DNA.
Convicted killer Marcellus Williams (2014 photo courtesy of the Missouri Department of Corrections}
“What separates Mr. Williams from many others is that he may be a case of actual innocence,” says Chapel.
The Missouri Supreme Court has denied a request to consider the new evidence that could free Williams.
“There is evidence that has not been considered by a court,” says Chapel. “Evidence that could prove that he had nothing to do with the murder itself.”
Williams has been convicted of killing Lisha Gayle while burglarizing her home in a gated University City community.
Republican Governor Eric Greitens has not made a decision about Williams’s clemency request.
