Missouri death row inmate makes new confession and resigns in exchange for life sentence after murdering former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter

A Missouri sentenced to death on Wednesday renounced his claim of innocence and entered a new noconference plea in an agreement that calls for a new life sentence without parole.

But the Missouri Attorney General's Office disagrees with the new ruling and will appeal to move the case forward. Execution scheduled for September 24 by Marcellus Williams.

The complicated turn of events occurred on the day that St. Louis District Judge Bruce Hinton was scheduled to preside over a hearing requested by District Attorney Wesley Bell to overturn Williams' conviction of first-degree murder in the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle. Bell had relied on DNA testing that was not available at the time of the crime and that found another person's DNA — but not Williams' — on the murder weapon.

After a long delay caused by a closed-door meeting of attorneys, Matthew Jacober, a lawyer for the St. Louis County District Attorney's Office, announced that even more recent DNA tests released Monday showed contamination from the handling of the gun by a former assistant district attorney and investigator. Because of the tainted evidence, it was impossible to prove that anyone else could have been the killer.

“The murder weapon was handled without following the prescribed procedures,” said Jacober. The improper handling occurred several years before Bell took office.

“The Court finds that the State of Missouri, represented by the St. Louis County District Attorney, admits that constitutional errors occurred in the original trial that undermine confidence in the original verdict,” District Judge Bruce Hilton wrote in his ruling Wednesday.

Williams agreed to an Alford plea, which is not an admission of guilt but acknowledges that there is enough evidence for a conviction. As part of an agreement with St. Louis County prosecutors, Williams entered the plea on Wednesday. He will be sentenced on Thursday; the agreement calls for a life sentence without parole. Williams also agreed not to appeal.

“Marcellus Williams is innocent and nothing in today's agreement changes that fact,” Williams' attorney Tricia Bushnell said in a statement. She noted that Gayle's family supports reversing the death penalty and that the family's confession brings “some degree of finality.”

“There has been no reliable evidence for the past 26 years linking Mr. Williams to the crime, and nothing in today's agreement changes the fact that Marcellus Williams' DNA is not on the murder weapon,” Bushnell said. “The fact that there is DNA on the knife that matches the DNA of the prosecution team members proves that the State of Missouri disregarded important protocols in investigating this case, including improperly handling crucial evidence. But regardless of who touched the weapon between 1998 and today and left DNA on it, there is no doubt that Marcellus Williams did not do it.”

Bushnell, a member of the Midwest Innocence Project, said her team will “continue to look for new evidence to prove once and for all that he is innocent.”

But the confession does not guarantee that Williams will not be executed. Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey is appealing to the Missouri Supreme Court to move forward with the execution, arguing that a district court does not have the authority to overrule the decision of the state Supreme Court that set the execution date.

“Throughout all of these legal games, the defense created a false narrative of innocence to get a convicted murderer off death row and achieve their political goals,” Bailey said in a statement. “Because the defense failed to do its due diligence and examine the evidence supposedly supporting its case, the victims have been forced to relive their terrible loss over and over again for the past six years.”

Williams, 55, was convicted of premeditated murder of Gayle in 1998. He was just hours away from execution in August 2017 when then-Governor Eric Greitens, a Republican, a stay granted after a DNA test that was not available at the time of the murder revealed that the DNA on the knife matched that of another person and 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, who is black, was sentenced to death by a jury of 11 whites and one black. In addition to first-degree murder, Williams was convicted of burglary, assault and attempted armed robbery.

Bailey, a Republican, said in a June court filing that despite the new DNA allegations, “the evidence for a conviction at trial is overwhelming.”

Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck said in 2018 He is of the opinion that “there are enough doubts in this case to at least commute his sentence.”

A 2021 law in Missouri allows prosecutors to file a motion to overturn a conviction they believe was unjust. The law has led to the acquittal of three men who spent decades in prison, including Christopher Dunn last month.

Typically, a judge listens to testimony for a few days and then takes up to two months to weigh the evidence. But Hilton won't have that luxury: Williams' execution is still 34 days away.

The Missouri Supreme Court set the execution date for June 4 in September, just hours after ruling that Parson, a Republican, was right to disband a committee of inquiry convened by Greitens after it blocked the execution in 2017.

The investigative committee, made up of five retired judges, never made a ruling or reached a conclusion on whether the new DNA evidence exonerated Williams. Parson dissolved the committee in June 2023, saying it was time to “look forward.”

Johnathan Shiflett, a spokesman for Parson, said the governor would “carefully consider the issue of a pardon for Mr. Williams, as he has done with all other death penalty cases during his administration, but no decision has been made.” Parson, a former county sheriff, has presided over 11 executions and has never granted a pardon.

In addition to Dunn, who spent 34 years behind bars for the death of a 15-year-old St. Louis boy, Missouri law allowing prosecutors to challenge convictions led to the release of two other men – Kevin Strickland And Lamar JohnsonBailey was not attorney general when Strickland's case came up for hearing, but his office opposed overturning the convictions of Dunn and Johnson.

Bailey also opposed efforts to Conviction of Sandra Hemmewho served 43 years in prison for murder, although the case was decided by appeals rather than a prosecutor's motion. A judge ruled in June that Hemme should be releasedBailey appealed several times to try to keep her behind bars, but Hemme was released in July.

Strickland was Release in 2021 after serving more than 40 years for three murders in Kansas City after a judge ruled in 1979 that he was wrongfully convicted. In 2023, a judge in St. Louis overturned Johnson's conviction. He served nearly 28 years for a murder he always claimed he did not commit.

Williams is the first death row inmate to have his claim of innocence heard in court since the law was passed in 2021. He has the support of another former death row inmate, Joseph Amrine, who spent 17 years on death row before being released in 2003 after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled there was no credible evidence linking him to the killing of another inmate.

“The state has nothing to gain from killing the wrong person,” Amrine said in a statement. “I hope the Attorney General's Office can change its approach and recognize that its actions affect people.”

Prosecutors at Williams' trial said he broke into Gayle's suburban St. Louis home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower and found a large butcher knife. When Gayle came down the stairs, she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband's laptop were stolen. Gayle, who was white, was a social worker and had previously worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to hide blood on his shirt. Williams' girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the laptop in the car and Williams sold it a day or two later. CBS News previously reported that police found Gayle's clothes and her husband's computer in Williams' car.

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 were convicted felons with a $10,000 reward.