JEFFERSON CITY — Gov. Mike Parson on Thursday said he had dissolved a board tasked with recommending life or death for Marcellus Williams, convicted of killing a former Post-Dispatch reporter in 1998.
He did not say what the board recommended, but Parson also lifted a nearly 6-year-old stay of execution in Williams’ case.
No execution date for Williams, convicted of killing Lisha Gayle, had been set as of Thursday.
“We could stall and delay for another six years, deferring justice, leaving a victim’s family in limbo, and solving nothing,†Parson said in a statement.
“This administration won’t do that,†he said. “Withdrawing the order allows the process to proceed within the judicial system, and, once the due process of law has been exhausted, everyone will receive certainty.â€
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Williams was sentenced to death in 2001 for the stabbing death of Gayle, a University City resident, in 1998. Gayle, 42, was a reporter at the Post-Dispatch from 1981 to 1992 before leaving to do social work.
when then-Gov. Eric Greitens stopped the process and invoked a rarely used state law to appoint a five-member panel of former judges to review whether Williams should be granted clemency amid new evidence showing Williams’ DNA was not found on the knife used in the killing.
In June 2018, after Greitens quit, Parson directed the retired jurists to continue their work.
The judicial panel hadn’t met since 2021 and delivered recommendations to Parson, St. Louis Public Radio reported in August, citing one of the panel’s members.
Prosecutors said Williams was burglarizing Gayle’s home in University City when she surprised him. Gayle fought for her life as she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.
Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. Williams’ girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on such a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the laptop in the car and that Williams sold it a day or two later.
Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a St. Louis cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and offered details about it.
Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted felons out for a $10,000 reward.
The Missouri Supreme Court in 2015 postponed Williams’ execution to allow time for the DNA tests. Using technology that was not available at the time of the killing, those tests show that DNA found on the knife matched that of an unknown male. Williams’ DNA was not found on the knife.
Despite that finding, the state’s high court denied Williams’ petition to stop the execution and either appoint a special master to hear his innocence claim or vacate the death sentence and order his sentence commuted to life in prison.
An attorney for Williams did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
In his news release, Parson said all records related to the judicial review, including all panel recommendations, were closed records under Missouri law.
The statute the governor cites says he may appoint a Board of Inquiry to gather information “bearing upon whether or not a person condemned to death should be executed or reprieved or pardoned, or whether the person’s sentence should be commuted.â€
“Such board shall make its report and recommendations to the governor,†the law says. “All information gathered by the board shall be received and held by it and the governor in strict confidence.â€
The Associated Press contributed to this report.