Man executed despite victim’s family asking him to be spared

There had been a number of appeals to have his case looked at again

Marcellus Williams died by lethal injection Tuesday evening in Missouri.

The 55-year-old was put to death around 6 p.m. CT at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

This was despite his attorneys filing multiple appeal efforts based on what they said was new evidence that had come to light.

This included alleged bias in jury selection and contamination of the murder weapon prior to trial, CNN reports.

Williams was convicted in 2001 of killing Felicia Gayle, a former newspaper reporter found stabbed to death in her home in 1998.

A prosecutor from the original trial said Williams was innocent, and Gayle's family had also asked that he be spared the death penalty.

However, Missouri's supreme court and governor refused to grant a stay of execution, a decision that was backed up the following day by the US Supreme Court.

The high court offered no explanation for its decision, which is common practice in cases on its emergency docket.

Following his execution, one of his attorneys Larry Komp said his client had maintained his innocence to the end.

Komp said in a statement: “While he would readily admit to the wrongs he had done throughout his life, he never wavered in asserting his innocence of the crime for which he was put to death tonight.

“Although we are devastated and in disbelief over what the State has done to an innocent man, we are comforted that he left this world in peace.”

But Mike Parson, the governor of Missouri, said he hoped Williams' execution would give "finality to a case that’s languished for decades," adding that "no juror no judge has ever found Williams’ innocence claim to be credible."

After the decision to deny his stay of execution was announced, another of Williams' attorneys said the state was prepared to kill an innocent man.

She told CNN: “They will do it even though the prosecutor doesn’t want him to be executed, the jurors who sentenced him to death don’t want him executed and the victims themselves don’t want him to be executed."

The new evidence included new testimony from the 2001 trial prosecutor and recent DNA testing on the knife used in the killing which suggested Williams may not have been Gayle's killer.

Both Williams' lawyers and St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell had asked the Missouri Supreme Court to send the case back to a lower court for a “more comprehensive hearing” on Bell’s January motion to vacate Williams’ 2001 conviction and sentence.

But this unraveled at a hearing last month when it was revealed the weapon had been mishandled before the 2001 trial and was contaminated as a result.

Gayle's family had been in favour of Williams being resentenced to life in prison. The St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said it reached an agreement with Williams last month - with the consent of Gayle's family - that he plead guilty to first-degree murder and accept a plea bargain to be resentenced to life in prison.

But this deal was blocked by the state attorney general’s office.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, at least 200 people sentenced to death in the US since 1973 were later exonerated.