Wed Sep 25 17:54:46 UTC 2024: ## Missouri Executes Inmate Despite Calls for Clemency and Questions of Innocence
**Bonne Terre, MO** – Marcellus Williams, a death row inmate who maintained his innocence for decades, was executed by lethal injection Tuesday evening at the Missouri state prison. Williams was convicted in 2001 for the murder of former newspaper reporter Felicia Gayle, who was found stabbed to death in her home in 1998.
Despite ongoing concerns about racial bias in the jury selection for Williams’ trial and the absence of DNA evidence linking him to the crime, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office argued for a halt to the execution. However, Missouri Governor Mike Parson, the state Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court all rejected requests for clemency and a stay of execution.
“Even for those who disagree on the death penalty, when there is a shadow of a doubt of any defendant’s guilt, the irreversible punishment of execution should not be an option,” stated St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell in a statement.
Williams’ final statement, handwritten in the days before his execution, simply read “All Praise Be to Allah in Every Situation!!!”
In the hours leading up to his death, Williams was visited by Imam Jalahii Kacem and consumed a last meal of chicken wings and tater tots. His attorney, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, spoke out against the execution, stating, “Missouri was executing an innocent man. That is not justice. And we must all question any system that would allow this to occur.”
Bushnell continued, “The execution of an innocent person is the most extreme manifestation of Missouri’s obsession with ‘finality’ over truth, justice, and humanity, at any cost. Tonight, we all bear witness to Missouri’s grotesque exercise of state power.”
She concluded her statement with a plea for change: “Let it not be in vain. This should never happen, and we must not let it continue.”
First Piper 