ST. LOUIS COUNTY — A judge on Tuesday set a date to consider overturning the murder conviction of Marcellus Williams, who was sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of a ºüÀêÊÓƵ-area woman.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ County prosecutors will ask the court to vacate Williams’ conviction on Aug. 21, about a month before he is set to die, based on claims that he is innocent.
Williams was convicted of breaking into the suburban home of former Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle on Aug. 11, 1998, and stabbing her 43 times.
“As everyone concerned recognizes, this is an unprecedented situation,†ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said Tuesday in a statement. “Since Missouri prosecutors have been given this power to intervene in past prosecutions made by their office, there has never been a time when a prosecutor intervened on a death penalty case — let alone with an execution date pending in less than three months on Sept. 24.â€
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Bell filed a motion in January to vacate the murder conviction and said he believed Williams was not involved in Gayle’s death.
Williams was set to die in August 2017, but hours before his execution, then-Gov. Eric Greitens halted the process and ordered an investigation into DNA evidence that could not be tested at the time of the murder. That evidence showed there was DNA on the knife used to stab Gayle that matched someone else, not Williams.
He appointed five retired judges to investigate.
Six years later, those retired judges had not reached a conclusion, and Gov. Mike Parson disbanded the group in June 2023. It’s unclear why they did not reach a conclusion.
Williams sued, and the state Supreme Court set his September execution date hours after it ruled Parson was within his rights to break up the board and move forward with the execution.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.