Marcellus Williams executed by lethal injection in Missouri after SCOTUS denied appeals

NEW YORK — Missouri death row inmate Marcellus Williams was executed by lethal injection Tuesday for the 1998 murder of Lisha Gayle, a former newspaper reporter who was found brutally stabbed in her suburban St. Louis home.

Williams, 55, died after 6:00 p.m. CDT at a Missouri state prison in Bonne Terre in Francois County, approximately 60 miles southwest of St. Louis, Williams' lawyer confirmed to ABC News.

The capital punishment case saw national attention with Williams maintaining his innocence, the victim's family opposing the execution and his prosecution submitting motions for appeals at every level.

"Marcellus Williams should be alive today. There were multiple points in the timeline when decisions could have been made that would have spared him the death penalty. If there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the death penalty should never be an option. This outcome did not serve the interests of justice," Wesley Bell, chief prosecutor for St. Louis County, said in a statement after the execution.

The United States Supreme Court denied two separate appeals to spare Williams' life on Tuesday an hour ahead of his execution, despite the objection of Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

Williams' attorney Tricia Rojo Bushnell released a statement after SCOTUS' decision, saying, "Tonight, Missouri will execute an innocent man Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams."

"As dark as today is, we owe it to Khaliifah to build a brighter future. We are thankful to the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney, for his commitment to truth and justice and all he did to try to prevent this unspeakable wrong. And for the millions of people who signed petitions, made calls, and shared Khaliifah's story," Bushnell said.

On Monday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and the state's Supreme Court rejected a bid to halt the execution.

In a statement to ABC News, Parson said, "No jury nor court, including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams' innocence claims."

"At the end of the day, his guilty verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld. Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams' innocence," Parson added.

Williams was charged with first-degree murder in 1999 for the killing of Gayle, a social worker and former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He was found guilty in 2001.

Prosecutors in Williams' original trial alleged he broke into Gayle's home in August 1998 and stabbed her 43 times with a large butcher knife, according to court documents. Her purse and her husband's laptop were stolen after the attack.

The kitchen knife used in the killing was left lodged in Gayle’s body, according to court documents. Blood, hair, fingerprints and shoe prints believed to belong to the perpetrator were found around the home.

Williams' defense claimed that his DNA was never found on the murder weapon and two unidentified sources of DNA would lead investigators to the actual killer.

In DNA evidence discovered in August, it was found that the former prosecutor and investigator who litigated the original trial failed to wear gloves when handling the murder weapon, leaving their DNA on the knife, revealing the sources of the unidentified DNA, which did not belong to an unidentified killer.

In his statement Monday, Parson accused Williams' attorneys of trying to "muddy the waters about DNA evidence" with claims that have previously been rejected by the courts.

"Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams' innocence," Parson said.

Williams' execution marks the third in Missouri this year and the 100th since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1989.

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