Updated on 08/23/2024 at 5:30 p.m. ET
The Missouri Supreme Court offered a black Missouri man a free pass from execution, but he refused the offer and chose to risk his life to prove his innocence.
Wednesday’s hearing threw a wrench into Marcellus Williams’ claim of innocence. Experts testified, according to the Associated Press, that the knife used in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle was mishandled after the crime. Therefore, Williams’ argument that his DNA was not on the knife could not be confirmed due to contamination by previous prosecutors and law enforcement.
In response, St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Hilton offered Williams the opportunity to enter an Alford plea for the premeditated murder of a white woman in 1998. While the plea is not an admission of guilt, it means there is enough evidence for a conviction.
The verdict would have resulted in his transfer from death row to a life sentence without parole.
But a lawyer told AP that Williams has rejected the offer and is maintaining his innocence, instead pinning all his hopes on an Aug. 28 hearing to present more evidence proving he did not have the murder weapon used in the crime in his possession.
Yet his execution date is still set for September 24, and Williams has 32 days to see if this desperate attempt is enough to send him home.
What happened in 1998?
The 55-year-old was accused of killing Gayle in her St. Louis home in August 1998, stabbing her a total of 43 times with a kitchen knife. The following year, an informant told authorities that Williams had confessed to the murder in exchange for a financial reward for any information leading to a possible suspect, according to a motion filed by St. Louis County District Attorney Wesley Bell.
Williams’ ex-girlfriend also told police that he confessed to the crime, according to the complaint, and claimed she saw him the afternoon of the incident with blood on his shirt and scratches on his neck.
Among those charges was the suspicion that Williams was in possession of some of Gayle’s missing belongings. However, the lawsuit stated that the forensic evidence found at the crime scene did not apply to him. As a result, Williams’ trial relied primarily on the two statements made against him, resulting in a quick conviction for premeditated murder and a near-life sentence.
Williams was originally scheduled to be executed in August 2017. But a few hours before the execution, a new discovery saved his life.
Read more at CBS News:
In August 2017, his execution was just hours away when then-Republican Governor Eric Greitens granted a stay after a DNA test that was not available at the time of the killing showed that DNA on the knife matched that of another person, not Williams.
This evidence prompted Bell to re-investigate the case.
“This previously unaddressed evidence, coupled with the relative paucity of other credible evidence of guilt, as well as additional considerations of inadequate legal representation and racial discrimination in jury selection, raises inescapable doubt about Mr. Williams’ conviction and sentence,” Bell’s motion states.
Williams’ case is the first to go to court since Missouri passed a law in 2021 allowing prosecutors to seek to overturn a wrongful conviction. CNN reports that the judge’s decision typically comes nearly two months after the evidence is presented.
However, the date for Williams’ next execution is still to come.
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