Death row inmate in the US receives life sentence after DNA test weakens sentence

Aug. 21 – A Missouri inmate convicted of fatally stabbing a woman in 1998 may avoid the death penalty and instead be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, prosecutors said Wednesday, after DNA tests on the murder weapon failed to match him.

Marcellus Williams, 55, who was scheduled to be executed next month, will enter an Alford plea on Thursday to a charge of first-degree murder as part of an agreement with prosecutors that will overturn his original conviction.

The plea allows Williams to continue to maintain his innocence, as he has done since the murder, while forgoing a retrial and accepting the recommended sentence.

In an order, St. Louis District Court Judge Bruce Hilton said the St. Louis District Attorney's Office admitted that there were “constitutional errors” during the trial that “undermined confidence” in the verdict. He also noted that the family of the victim, Felicia “Lisha” Gayle, did not want Williams to be executed.

Gayle was stabbed 43 times in her suburban home, and Williams was convicted in 2001 largely based on the testimony of two witnesses that prosecutors now describe in court documents as “unreliable.”

Prosecutors had initially concluded that DNA testing ruled out Williams, but additional testing found the lead investigator's DNA on the knife, suggesting the weapon was mishandled and contaminated at the time of the murder, but not definitively ruling out Williams.

Williams' attorney, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, said in a statement that there was never any reliable evidence linking her client to the crime.

“Marcellus Williams is innocent and nothing about today's agreement changes that fact,” she said in a statement. “By agreeing to an Alford plea, the parties will provide some measure of finality to Felicia Gayle's family while ensuring that Mr. Williams remains alive as we continue to search for new evidence to prove his innocence once and for all.”

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey dissented from the court's decision, arguing that it left unaffected evidence used to convict Williams. A spokesman for the St. Louis district attorney's office said the office expects Bailey to appeal Wednesday's decision.

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