The state of Missouri has executed Marcellus Williams after he was convicted of stabbing social worker Felicia Gayle with a butcher knife over 40 times and robbing her home in 1998.
Left-wing activists are declaring this a lynching of an innocent man. Here are just a few examples:
Democrats like AOC have used the occasion to campaign against the death penalty:
Here are the claims they are making:
DNA evidence on the knife was contaminated and therefore inadmissible
The jury that convicted Williams only had one black man
A prosecutor and even members of the victims' family were campaigning for Williams to not receive the death penalty
What they're not telling you:
Even without DNA on the knife, there is overwhelming physical, circumstantial, and witness evidence of Williams's guilt, including Williams's own confession
The prosecutor campaigning for Williams's innocence is a Soros-backed prosecutor and activist named Wesley Bell who ousted the Republican prosecutor on the wave of BLM outrage over Michael Brown's death
The case was appealed multiple times
Members of the victim's family, including her widower husband, believe Williams is guilty and have been waiting over 20 years for justice. Their refusal to attend the execution was inaccurately portrayed by the media as them believing he was innocent.
The case can be found in its entirety here. Here are the highlights:
Williams was a serial burglar and convicted of other break-ins in the area
After stabbing Gayle 43 times, he took a jacket from the residence to cover the blood.
He stole a purse and a laptop from the residence, which he then attempted to sell.
Williams's girlfriend saw the blood on his shirt and the purse in the backseat. Williams confessed his crime and then threatened her if she told anyone.
Williams's girlfriend and cellmate both testified to Williams's confession, corroborating details of the murder that weren't publicly reported.
While incarcerated, Williams attempted to escape and assaulted an officer with a metal bar.
Williams agreed to enter a plea of "no contest" in exchange for a life sentence, but the request was denied.
The details are disturbing:
On August 11, 1998, Williams drove his grandfather's Buick LeSabre to a bus stop and caught a bus to University City. Once there, he began looking for a house to break into. Williams came across the home of Felicia Gayle. He knocked on the front door but no one answered. Williams then knocked out a window pane near the door, reached in, unlocked the door, and entered Gayle's home. He went to the second floor and heard water running in the shower. It was Gayle. Williams went back downstairs, rummaged through the kitchen, found a large butcher knife, and waited.
Gayle left the shower and called out, asking if anyone was there. She came down the stairs. Williams attacked, stabbing *467 and cutting Gayle forty-three times, inflicting seven fatal wounds. Afterwards, Williams went to an upstairs bathroom and washed off. He took a jacket and put it on to conceal the blood on his shirt. Before leaving, Williams placed Gayle's purse and her husband's laptop computer and black carrying case in his backpack. The purse contained, among other things, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch ruler and a calculator. Williams left out the front door and caught a bus back to the Buick.
After returning to the car, Williams picked up his girlfriend, Laura Asaro. Asaro noticed that, despite the summer heat, Williams was wearing a jacket. When he removed the jacket, Asaro noticed that Williams' shirt was bloody and that he had scratches on his neck. Williams claimed he had been in a fight. Later in the day, Williams put his bloody clothes in his backpack and threw them into a sewer drain, claiming he no longer wanted them.
Asaro also saw a laptop computer in the car. A day or two after the murder, Williams sold the laptop to Glenn Roberts.
The next day, Asaro went to retrieve some clothes from the trunk of the car. Williams did not want her to look in the trunk and tried to push her away. Before he could, Asaro snatched a purse from the trunk. She looked inside and found Gayle's Missouri state identification card and a black coin purse. Asaro demanded that Williams explain why he had Gayle's purse. Williams then confessed that the purse belonged to a woman he had killed. He explained in detail how he went into the kitchen, found a butcher knife, and waited for the woman to get out of the shower. He further explained that when the woman came downstairs from the shower, he stabbed her in the arm and then put his hand over her mouth and stabbed her in the neck, twisting the knife as he went. After relaying the details of the murder, Williams grabbed Asaro by the throat and threatened to kill her, her children and her mother if she told anyone.
On August 31, 1998, Williams was arrested on unrelated charges and incarcerated at the St. Louis City workhouse. From April until June 1999, Williams shared a room with Henry Cole. One evening in May, Cole and Williams were watching television and saw a news report about Gayle's murder. Shortly after the news report, Williams told Cole that he had committed the crime. Over the next few weeks, Cole and Williams had several conversations about the murder. As he had done with Laura Asaro, Williams went into considerable detail about how he broke into the house and killed Gayle.
After Cole was released from jail in June 1999, he went to the University City police and told them about Williams' involvement in Gayle's murder. He reported details of the crime that had never been publicly reported.
In November of 1999, University City police approached Asaro to speak with her about the murder. Asaro told the police that Williams admitted to her that he had killed Gayle. The next day, the police searched the Buick LeSabre and found the Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator belonging to Gayle. The police also recovered the laptop computer from Glenn Roberts. The laptop was identified as the one stolen from Gayle's residence."
The state's attorney general Andrew Bailey had harsh words for Prosecutor Wesley Bell, accusing him of creating "a false narrative of innocence in order to get a convicted murderer off of death row and fulfill their political ends."
Online activists claim the victim's family argued Williams should not receive the death penalty, but we have not found any reports that cite who these family members are, or what they said.
We do, however, have a statement from the current wife of Lisha Gayle's husband, speaking on his behalf:
"Whether the death penalty is deserved in a case like this is a matter for debate. His guilt is not."
Here is the final portion of her heartbreaking statement:
More than 700 people attended the memorial service for Lisha Gayle. "She was a once-in-a-lifetime friend," Nancy Watson, who grew up with Gayle. "She was calm, curious, observant, and fun-loving ... We were close until she died. I mourn her to this day."
Remember the life of Lisha Gayle as you see the Left celebrating the life of her brutal killer.
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