In his clemency petition, Marsellus Williams’s mother calls it the only mistake she ever made. His father left him unwanted. Now, as he faces execution for a murder he says he didn’t commit, a large crowd is rallying behind him. No one wants him to die—not the jury that decided his fate years ago, not the district attorney’s office, not even the victim’s family. The only entity pushing for his execution, it seems, is the state of Missouri.
“The district attorney’s office, the office that secured the conviction and the death sentence, is now saying there was a mistake in the case,” said Tricia Rogo Bushnell, an attorney with Williams’ Innocence Project. “They admitted the mistake, both at trial and at the trial.” [terms of] “Racism, jury selection, and contamination of evidence. But the state still wants to execute him. This is a really disturbing phenomenon for all of us. What is the point of this?”
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 suburban St. Louis. Prosecutors alleged that Williams robbed Gayle, then stabbed her to death and hid her wallet and her husband’s laptop in the trunk of his car. His girlfriend testified that she discovered the damning evidence, and that Williams confessed to the killing to her. The prosecution also alleged that Williams confessed to his cellmate, Henry Cole, while he was in prison on unrelated charges. However, the defense claimed that Cole and his girlfriend were criminals who were out for a $10,000 bounty. Regardless, Williams was convicted and sentenced to death in August 2017.
Hours before the execution was scheduled to take place, then-Governor Eric Greitens (R) called for a moratorium in light of newly discovered DNA testing on the murder weapon, which indicated that an unknown man was in fact the killer—not Williams. (The defense said there was no other physical evidence linking him to the crime.) “In order to carry out the death penalty, the people of Missouri must have confidence in the guilty verdict,” Greitens said in the statement. As such, Greitens formed a board of inquiry to consider the new information.
However, in 2023, current Governor Mike Parson (R) — who has not yet commented — announced that Rolling Stone – Dissolve the Board of Inquiry. “This board was created nearly six years ago, and it’s time to move on,” he said. “We can drag out and delay for another six years, delay justice, leave the victim’s family in limbo, and not solve anything. This administration will not do that. Withdrawing the order allows the process to continue through the justice system, and once due process is exhausted, everyone will have certainty.” It is currently unknown whether the board has found anything. Representatives from the Williams Innocence Project claim that the work is not done yet. Regardless, Williams has been given a new execution date of September 24.
Williams’ team continued to fight for him — even when it was discovered that the knife in question had been mishandled and that DNA evidence was therefore inconclusive. As such, at an Aug. 21 hearing, prosecutors and the defense reached a compromise, deciding that Williams would enter a plea to first-degree murder in exchange for life in prison without parole, according to the Associated Press. The judge and Gayle’s family agreed, but the governor did not, and at the urging of Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who was appointed by Parson, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the deal and ordered an evidentiary hearing in late August. “They’re referring to the evidence in this case as weak. It was overwhelming,” Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane said at the time. He did not respond. Rolling StoneRequest comment.
On September 12, the same judge upheld Williams' death sentence, writing: “The Missouri courts have rejected all of Williams' claims of error on direct appeal, post-conviction review, and habeas corpus review. There is no basis for the court to find Williams not guilty, and no court has ever entered such a finding. Williams is guilty of first-degree murder, and is sentenced to death.”
But the battle continues. The St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office filed an appeal Monday night, while the governor received a petition for clemency challenging his earlier assertion that the victim’s family would find relief only through Williams’ execution. And while Gayle’s family isn’t certain of Williams’ innocence, they don’t want him executed, Rogo Bushnell said. (They declined to speak to his lawyer.) Rolling StoneIn fact, it is a mistake to believe that most victims want those who hurt them – or their family members – to die. Atlantic Ocean In a survey of 10,000 of these people in 2023, the report found that “victims are not more aggressive about dealing with crime than non-victims; they prefer rehabilitation to tough justice, even though they have direct experience with crime and the criminal justice system.”
Even the jurors reversed their earlier decision to seek clemency. “After looking at this new DNA evidence, it’s something I would have considered at the conviction stage and it might have made a difference with the jury,” the jury foreman said. An alternate juror opined: “After reviewing this information, I’m disturbed that none of this was presented at trial and that the jury never had the opportunity to consider it. … I strongly believe that if this information had been presented to the jury, it would have made a difference in the verdict and sentence.”
The attorneys also asked the federal court to reconsider a previously dismissed appeal that alleged that Williams’ jury was racially unequal. The state used most of its critical strikes to block six of seven potential black jurors, they wrote in their filing. In the end, the jury consisted of 11 white jurors and one black juror, the attorneys wrote in a filing Tuesday. On Wednesday, Williams’ attorneys also filed a motion calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case and halt his execution.
“Executing an innocent person is a tragic and irreversible failure of the justice system,” Williams’ lawyers said. Rolling Stone In a statement. “As a society, pardons exist to ensure that even if the court system fails, our elected leaders will not. When an innocent person’s life is at stake, our elected leaders must honor their commitment to pardon and protect the public’s trust in our justice system by carefully considering all evidence, old and new. But Mr. Williams’s chance at pardon has been taken away from him, so we have turned to the Supreme Court to intervene.”
Williams is one of five men scheduled to be executed next week — and if he dies next week, he would be the 14th man to be executed in the United States this year. His execution comes at a crucial time for the death penalty in America — an election year. Former President Donald Trump is a vocal proponent of executions; a year ago, he said he would be executed in 2011. Rolling Stone In an earlier report, a former White House official claimed that the current Republican candidate might envision killing gang members and drug dealers: “Kill them all,” he would say. “An eye for an eye.” He once said, “They should be eliminated, not locked up.”
Trump is also a big fan of the firing squad, which, along with the electric chair, is now considered an accepted form of capital punishment in the United States. This is largely because some pharmaceutical companies have refused to supply the drugs needed for lethal injection, in part because the method has arguably the highest rate of botched executions.
Meanwhile, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris — a former death penalty critic — appears to have remained silent on the issue, even after President Joe Biden promised in 2020 to halt federal executions and propose legislation to abolish the death penalty at the state level. This year’s Democratic platform, for the first time since 2004, lacks any mention of the death penalty. The campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In the meantime, Williams is doing his best to wait for the governor to stop his death or for the Supreme Court to stop him—or for the Supreme Court to stop him. “He’s done other things in the past that he’s not proud of,” says Rojo Bushnell. “But now he’s a good person who cares about people and wants to help them be the best version of themselves. It’s just a great reminder that we can make a choice. We have a choice to be who we want to be.”
