Missouri death row inmate agrees to new guilty plea in plea deal that calls for life in prison without possibility of parole

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri death row inmate withdrew his claim of innocence Wednesday and filed a new plea of ​​not guilty as part of a plea agreement in search of a change to his sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

However, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office opposes the new sentence and intends to appeal in order to allow Marcellus Williams’s execution scheduled for September 24 to go ahead.

The complicated turn of events got here on the day that St. Louis County District Judge Bruce Hinton was to oversee a hearing requested by prosecutor Wesley Bell to overturn Williams’ first-degree murder conviction in the 1998 slaying of Lisha Gayle. Bell cited DNA testing, unavailable on the time of the crime, that found one other person’s DNA — not Williams’ — on the murder weapon.

After a protracted delay with lawyers meeting behind closed doors, Matthew Jacober, a special prosecutor with the St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office, announced that even newer DNA tests released Monday showed contamination from the handling of the gun by a former deputy prosecutor and investigator. The contaminated evidence made it inconceivable to prove that the killer was another person.

“The murder weapon was used without proper procedures,” Jacober said. The misuse occurred several years before Bell took office.

Williams agreed to an Alford plea, which isn’t an admission of guilt but acknowledges there’s enough evidence to convict him. Under an agreement with St. Louis County prosecutors, Williams entered the plea Wednesday. He shall be sentenced Thursday — the agreement calls for life in prison without the possibility of parole. Williams also agreed not to appeal.

“Marcellus Williams is an innocent man, and nothing in today’s plea agreement changes that fact,” Williams’ attorney, Tricia Bushnell, said in an announcement. She noted that Gayle’s family supports overturning the death penalty and that the guilty plea “brings some finality to the family.”

But an appeal isn’t any guarantee Williams won’t be executed. Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey is appealing to the Missouri Supreme Court as he seeks to proceed with the execution, arguing that the district court lacks the authority to overturn the state Supreme Court’s decision to set an execution date.

“Throughout the legal games, the defense created a false narrative of innocence to protect a convicted murderer from the death penalty and advance their political goals,” Bailey said in an announcement. “Because of the defense’s failure to exercise due diligence in reviewing evidence that supposedly supported their case, the victims have been forced to relive their terrible loss for the past six years.”

Williams, 55, was hours away from execution in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay after DNA tests, unavailable on the time of the killing, showed that DNA on the knife matched another person, not Williams.

This evidence prompted Bell to reconsider the case.

“This previously unheard evidence, coupled with the relative paucity of other credible evidence to support guilt, and the additional considerations of ineffective counsel and racial discrimination in jury selection, cast an inexorable doubt upon Mr. Williams’ conviction and sentence,” Bell’s motion stated.

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Williams, who’s black, was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury of 11 white people and one black person.

A 2021 Missouri law allows prosecutors to file a motion to overturn a conviction they imagine was unfair. The law led to the exoneration of three men who spent many years in prison, including Christopher Dunn last month.

The Missouri Supreme Court set an execution date of June 4, hours after ruling that Gov. Mike Parsons, a Republican, had the correct to disband a commission of inquiry convened by Greitens after he halted his execution in 2017.

The inquiry, made up of five retired judges, never issued a ruling or reached a conclusion on whether the new DNA evidence exonerated Williams. Parson disbanded the commission in June 2023, saying it was time to “move on.”

In addition to Dunn, who spent 34 years behind bars for the death of a 15-year-old St. Louis boy, a Missouri law allowing prosecutors to challenge convictions led to the discharge of two other men — Kevin Strickland and Lamar Johnson. Bailey was not attorney general when Strickland’s case went to trial, but his office opposed overturning the convictions of Dunn and Johnson.

Bailey also opposed efforts to overturn the conviction of Sandra Hemme, who spent 43 years in prison for murder, although that case was selected appeal fairly than by a prosecutor. A judge ruled in June that Hemme needs to be freed. Bailey has filed multiple appeals to try to keep her behind bars, but Hemme was released in July.

Strickland was freed in 2021 after serving greater than 40 years for three slayings in Kansas City after a judge ruled he was wrongly convicted in 1979. In 2023, a St. Louis judge overturned Johnson’s conviction. He had served nearly 28 years for a killing he all the time maintained he didn’t commit.

Williams was the primary death row inmate to have his claim of innocence heard by a judge for the reason that 2021 law was passed. Several other individuals who have been exonerated showed up in the courtroom to support him, including one other former death row inmate, Joseph Amrine, who spent 17 years on death row before being freed in 2003 after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled there was no credible evidence linking him to the killing of one other inmate.

Prosecutors in Williams’ trial said he broke into Gayle’s suburban St. Louis home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower and located a big butcher knife. When Gayle went downstairs, she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen. Gayle, who was white, was a social employee who had previously worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a St. Louis cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was imprisoned on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams had confessed to the killing and provided details about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that each the girl and Cole are convicted felons with a $10,000 reward for their killing.