CLAYTON, Missouri – The Missouri Supreme Court has blocked a plea agreement that would have saved the life of a death row inmate, forcing Marcellus Williams to face a plea hearing with just over a month to go until his scheduled execution.

The ruling late Wednesday came hours after St. Louis County District Judge Bruce Hilton approved a plan that would allow Williams to enter a new “no contest” plea to the premeditated murder of Lisha Gayle in 1998. Although Williams’ lawyers said he continued to maintain his innocence, the plea would acknowledge that the evidence was sufficient for a conviction.

Williams, 55, would have been sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday. Instead, his Sept. 24 execution date is pending a hearing before Hilton on Williams’ claim of innocence.

Here’s what you need to know about the case:

Lisha Gayle was a social worker and former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was stabbed to death in her University City home on August 11, 1998.

At the time, prosecutors said Williams broke into Gayle’s home and heard water running in the upstairs shower. They said he found a large butcher knife and waited for her to come down. When she did, Gayle was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.

Authorities said Williams also stole a jacket to hide blood on his shirt, and his girlfriend asked him why he was wearing it on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the laptop in the car and Williams sold it a day or two later.

Prosecutors also relied on the testimony of Henry Cole, who was incarcerated with Williams in a St. Louis cell in 1999 while Williams was incarcerated on other charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the murder and provided details about it.

Williams’ lawyers responded that the girlfriend and Cole, both convicted of serious crimes, were seeking a $10,000 reward for information in the case.

Williams was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2001. The sentence was later upheld by the Missouri Supreme Court.

In 2017, Williams was just hours away from his execution – he had already eaten his last meal. His lawyers filed a final appeal, citing DNA testing that was not available at the time of the original trial and that suggested the DNA of someone other than Williams was found on the knife.

This was enough to convince then-Governor Eric Greitens to grant a stay of execution and appoint a commission of inquiry made up of former judges.

But that committee never issued a report or released any findings. In 2023, Governor Mike Parson – a Republican like Greitens – dissolved the investigative committee. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in June that Parson had the right to do so and set September 24 as the execution date.

Bob McCulloch was St. Louis County prosecutor when Williams was convicted. He served for 28 years before being defeated in the 2018 Democratic primary by Ferguson City Council member Wesley Bell. Bell, who rose to prominence in Ferguson after Michael Brown’s death, promised a more progressive approach to running the office.

That included a reconsideration of possible miscarriages of justice. In January, Bell announced he would request a hearing before a judge to overturn Williams’ murder conviction, citing the DNA testing. That hearing was scheduled for Wednesday before Judge Hilton.

The results of a new DNA test released on Monday changed everything.

They concluded that the knife used in the murder was mishandled after the crime. DNA from Edward Magee, a prosecutor’s investigator at the time, was found, and tests also failed to rule out the original prosecutor in the case, Keith Larner.

“Further investigation and testing have shown that the evidence was not properly handled at the time of (Williams’) conviction,” Matthew Jacober, a special counsel in Bell’s office, told the judge. “Therefore, DNA was likely removed and added between 1998 and 2001.”

Bell was absent from the hearing because he was at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Bell defeated incumbent Cori Bush in the Democratic primary in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District on August 6 and will be the clear favorite in November.

Although Williams continues to maintain his innocence, the tainted DNA evidence was a major blow to his case, leading to hours of negotiations between his lawyers and prosecutors.

On Wednesday afternoon, they reached an agreement: Williams should enter an Alford plea, which is not an admission of guilt but an acknowledgment that there is sufficient evidence for a conviction. In return, his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment without parole.

Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that given the tainted DNA evidence, confessing was the best option for Williams.

“Mr. Williams faced an impossible choice: With the execution date just over a month away, he could risk a legal process that never gave him a fair chance and hope things turned out differently – or he could accept the deal that would save his life and give the victim’s family the closure they wanted,” Maher said in an email. “Anyone would accept the deal.”

Peter Joy, a professor at Washington University Law School, said many aspects of the case were troubling, including the botched DNA evidence and the setting of an execution date while proof of innocence was still being tested.

“I hope there is no rush in the execution,” Joy said.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey immediately challenged the new motion and sentence reduction, arguing that the lower court did not have the authority to essentially overturn the state Supreme Court’s decision. Within hours, the high court relented.

His order also required Hilton to attend the evidentiary hearing scheduled for August 28.

In a statement, Bailey said people too often “forget all the evidence used to convict the defendant – the evidence the jury relied on – and the victims.”

But Williams’ attorney, Tricia Bushnell, pointed out that Gayle’s family supports the new confession and sentence. In a statement, she said the Supreme Court’s ruling “directly contradicts the will of a duly elected prosecutor and the community he represents, as well as the wishes of a family that has already lost so much.”

Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center said there are also “credible claims of innocence” for men sentenced to death in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama.

“These cases give the impression that our legal system places more importance on procedure and ‘finality’ than on innocence and justice. This explains why so many people are losing faith in the death penalty,” Maher said.