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Felicia Gayle Picus (known as Lisha) was a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter who was found stabbed to death in her St. Louis, Missouri home during the day on August 11, 1998.
Gayle, 42 years old, was killed during a burglary in her gated community home in the University City suburb of St Louis, Missouri. She was stabbed between 10 times and 43 times with a butcher's knife taken from her kitchen.
Felicia Gayle was born and grew up in Rockford, Illinois. She had graduated from University of Illinois with a degree in journalism and made her way in that career. By 1981, she was working as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , where she stayed until 1992. She left the newspaper to pursue more philanthropy and volunteer work. [1]
In 1998, Gayle lived with her husband, Dr. Daniel Picus, in a home in University City, a suburb of St Louis, Missouri. They had known each other since childhood in Rockford. He is a radiologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. She was 42 years old.
Gayle was stabbed to death during a daytime burglary at her home on August 11, 1998. [2] Someone broke into the house. She was stabbed up to 43 times with a butcher's knife; seven of the wounds were fatal. [3] Gayle's purse, her jacket, and her husband's laptop were found to be missing, along with some other minor items.
The crime scene left an abundance of forensic evidence for profiling the otherwise unknown murderer, such as fingerprints, footprints, hair, and a DNA trace on the murder weapon. [4] In May 1999, Gayle's family announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case. [5] In response, two individuals, Henry Cole and Lara Asaro, named Marcellus Scott Williams (born December 30, 1968) [6] as the culprit. Williams had an extensive criminal record. Cole volunteered that Williams had made a jailhouse confession to him when both were in jail on charges unrelated to the murder. Cole had already been released before volunteering his information. Williams had started serving a 20-year sentence for robbing a doughnut shop. [7] Lara Asaro, the girlfriend of Williams at the time of the crime, gave testimony that Williams had confessed to her and detailed what had happened. This is after she discovered evidence from the crime scene in Williams' car. Unlike Cole's deposition, which was compatible with news reports, she is said to have provided details that had not been mentioned in the public accounts of the crime, [8] [9] a point contested by the Innocence Project. [4] [10]
Both informants stood to benefit from their testimonies, which varied over time, and which sometimes conflicted with other details about the murder. [8] [4] Both could gain financially from the reward offered. One witness, Glenn Roberts, stated that he had purchased an Apple laptop from Williams shortly after the robbery. Williams did not testify at his trial. After the trial, Williams said he had sold the victim's Apple device to Roberts, and that he had told him he had received the laptop from Lara Asaro, a defense which would have linked her to the crime. Even though other pieces of evidence from the scene were found in the trunk of Williams' car.
During the trial, the judge had refused to allow testing of some of the DNA evidence found at the scene. Jury selection challenges had resulted in a jury of 11 whites and one African American. Williams was convicted of Gayle's murder in 2001 by the jury after testimony from 22 witnesses. Williams was already serving a 50 year sentence for an unrelated robbery when he was sentenced to death on August 27, 2001, by St. Louis County Circuit Judge Emmett M. O'Brien.
Williams has been held on death row at Potosi Correctional Center since the end of his trial. He has always maintained his innocence in the Gayle case. His case has been appealed unsuccessfully several times. He was first scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in 2015. In appeals, his defense produced evidence that DNA taken from the knife at the scene revealed an unknown male profile and did not match that of Williams. [8] Williams was scheduled to be executed on August 22, 2017.
Questions continue to be raised, as the state Supreme Court would not hear the new DNA evidence nor stay the execution. The prosecutor said they were confident about the case despite the DNA. [11] Governor Eric Greitens issued a last-minute stay of execution that day. [12] The governor initiated a Board of Inquiry to examine the new DNA evidence and other aspects of the case. [13] The Board was headed by Carol E. Jackson, former federal judge of the Eastern District of Missouri. The Board consists of five retired federal judges to review the case. [14] It has subpoenaed both prosecution and defense. [15] [16] The Board was also to meet with the state and defense attorneys in June 2018. Greitens resigned as governor in June 2018. The DNA evidence and new analysis suggested that another man was a suspect; DNA on the knife did not match that of Williams. The Board had hearings in August 2018. Governor Mike Parson was to receive the Board's conclusion, and make his decision. [17] As of September 2021, the Board were still looking into new findings.
In June 2023, Governor Parson decided to dissolve the panel of five judges without receiving their report and lifted the stay on Williams' execution. He said it was time for the court to make a decision. [1] Later State Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the state Supreme Court to set a date for Williams' execution. [8] [18]
In August 2023, The Midwest Innocence Project filed a lawsuit, stating that the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney is on record as stating he has convincing evidence of Williams' innocence. [19] According to the Innocence Project, the Missouri Attorney General's Office has a record of dismissing DNA evidence that points to an accused person's innocence. [20]
On January 26, 2024, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in the St. Louis County Circuit Court, asking the Court to vacate Marcellus Williams' death sentence. A 2021 Missouri law allows a prosecutor to intervene where there is information suggesting a convicted person may be innocent. He cited potential "ineffective assistance of counsel", apparent bias in jury selection, and potential weakness of the police investigation. He asked the Court for a hearing to consider the new evidence and other aspects of the investigation and trial. [8] The new evidence consisted of a special prosecutor's review of the case, including the findings of 3 independent DNA experts who unanimously concluded that the male DNA on the murder weapon was not Williams'. [4] A hearing was scheduled for August 21, 2024 to determine his innocence. [21]
On June 4, 2024, Williams was again scheduled to be executed on September 24, 2024. [22] On July 2, the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri, scheduled a hearing for August 21, 2024, to evaluate the "clear and convincing evidence" of Williams' innocence. [23] On July 12, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that his execution will move forward despite the pending lawsuit to overturn his conviction. In the court's opinion overruling the motion, justice Zel Fischer ruled that "they do not have the procedural authority to withdraw the execution order at this time." [21]
On August 21, 2024, Williams accepted a plea bargain offered by the prosecution to commute his death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. [24] [25] The prosecutors argued in favour of Williams during the hearing that the DNA testing of the murder weapon did not match him, and they duly considered this fact before offering an "Alford plea" to vacate the death sentence in Williams's case. However, the state attorney general opposed to this decision and wanted the execution to move forward as scheduled. [26]
On the same day, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the plea deal agreement and the execution date of Williams was still slated as September 24, 2024, and a hearing is scheduled to hear the innocence claims of Williams. [27]
On September 12, 2024, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton rejected the appeal of Williams, stating that the counsel has rehashed their arguments from previous appeals, all of which were rejected multiple times by the state and federal courts, and ordered that the execution should move forward as scheduled. [28]
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 20 of them have authority to execute death sentences, with the other 7, as well as the federal government and military, subject to moratoriums.
Clarence Ray Allen was an American criminal and proxy killer who was executed in 2006 at the age of 76 by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison in California for the murders of three people. Allen was the second-oldest inmate at the time to be executed in the United States since 1976.
Henry Watkins Skinner was an American death row inmate in Texas. In 1995, he was convicted of bludgeoning to death his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and stabbing to death her two adult sons, Randy Busby and Elwin Caler. On March 24, 2010, twenty minutes before his scheduled execution, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of execution to consider the question of whether Skinner could request testing of DNA his attorney chose not to have tested at his original trial in 1994. A third execution date for November 9, 2011, was also ultimately stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on November 7, 2011.
Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Cases of wrongful execution are cited as an argument by opponents of capital punishment, while proponents say that the argument of innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
Joseph M. Giarratano is a former prisoner who served in Deerfield Correctional Center, in Southampton County, Virginia, US. On November 21, 2017, he was granted parole. He was convicted, based on circumstantial evidence and his own confessions, of murdering Toni Kline and raping and strangling her 15-year-old daughter Michelle on February 4, 1979, in Norfolk, Virginia. He has said that he was an addict for years and had blacked out on alcohol and drugs, waking to find the bodies. He was sentenced to death, and incarcerated on death row for 12 years at the former Virginia State Penitentiary.
Sharon Faye Keller is the Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. She is a Republican.
Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991), was a United States Supreme Court case authored by Chief Justice William Rehnquist which held that testimony in the form of a victim impact statement is admissible during the sentencing phase of a trial and, in death penalty cases, does not violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment. Payne overturned two of the Courts' precedents: Booth v. Maryland (1987) and South Carolina v. Gathers (1989).
Earl Washington Jr. is a former Virginia death-row inmate, who was fully exonerated of murder charges against him in 2000. He had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 for the 1982 rape and murder of Rebecca Lyn Williams in Culpeper, Virginia. Washington has an IQ estimated at 69, which classifies him as intellectually disabled. He was coerced into confessing to the crime when arrested on an unrelated charge a year later. He narrowly escaped being executed in 1985 and 1994.
Kimberly LaGayle McCarthy was an American death row inmate and suspected serial killer who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of her neighbor, 71-year-old retired college professor Dorothy Booth, in her Lancaster, Texas home during a robbery. She was a suspect in the murders of two other elderly Texas women, for which she was never tried.
Willie Jerome "Fly" Manning is on death row at Mississippi State Penitentiary, USA, with two death sentences for a conviction of double murder. He was previously also convicted and sentenced to death for an unrelated double murder, but the State Supreme Court overturned this verdict and ordered a new trial. The charges against him for the Jimmerson-Jordan murders were then dropped, and the Death Penalty Information Center listed him as a 2015 death row exoneree for this case.
Investigating Innocence is a nonprofit wrongful conviction advocacy organization that provides criminal defense investigations for inmates in the United States. Investigating Innocence was founded in 2013 by private investigator Bill Clutter to assist nationwide Innocence Project groups in investigating innocence claims. "Once we have a case that meets our criteria, we'll put private investigators to work on it. A lot of these cases need investigators," said Kelly Thompson, executive director of Investigating Innocence. Prior to his work on Investigating Innocence, Clutter was one of the founders of the Illinois Innocence Project. Investigating Innocence also has a board composed of exonerees that reviews incoming cases.
A jailhouse confession is a confession to a crime given by a prisoner to another inmate while in custody. Legal regimes have developed with respect to the use of jailhouse confessions in the prosecution of crimes.
Richard Eugene Glossip is an American prisoner currently on death row at Oklahoma State Penitentiary after being convicted of commissioning the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese. The man who murdered Van Treese, Justin Sneed, had a "meth habit" and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for testifying against Glossip. Sneed received a life sentence without parole. Glossip's case has attracted international attention due to the unusual nature of his conviction, namely that there was little or no corroborating evidence, with the first case against him described as "extremely weak" by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.
Ledell Lee was an American man convicted and executed for the 1993 murder of his neighbor, Debra Reese. He was convicted in 1995, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 1997, but numerous questions have been raised about the justice of his trial and post-conviction representation. Issues have included conflict of interest for the judge, inebriation of counsel, and ineffective defense counsel. A request to postpone the execution in order to test DNA on the murder weapon was denied by a circuit judge. After Lee's execution, it was proven that the DNA on the murder weapon belonged to another person, an unknown male.
The Tommy Zeigler case refers to the murders of four people in Winter Garden, Florida, United States on December 24, 1975. Thirty-year-old Tommy Zeigler was charged for the quadruple murder of his wife, her parents, and another man at his family-owned furniture store. He was tried and convicted on July 2, 1976. Zeigler was sentenced to death on July 16, 1976, for two of the murders, in addition to life imprisonment.
Walter Ogrod is an American man who was convicted and sentenced to death for the July 12, 1988, sexual assault and murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to police, Ogrod confessed to Horn's murder four years after it occurred, but in 2020 the "confession" was recognized to be false. On June 5 of that year, Ogrod's conviction was vacated by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and he was ordered to be released from prison. He had spent more than two decades on death row.
Rodney Rodell Reed is an American death row inmate who was convicted on May 18, 1998, by a Bastrop County District Court jury for the April 1996 abduction, rape, and murder of Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old resident of Giddings, Texas.
Oscar Franklin Smith is an American man convicted of capital murder in Tennessee and sentenced to death. Smith has maintained innocence and was scheduled to be executed on April 21, 2022, however, his execution was temporarily reprieved by Governor Bill Lee due to an oversight in the preparation for lethal injection.
On June 19, 1992, in Oklahoma City, 31-year-old convenience store owner Kenneth Meers was gunned down during a robbery perpetrated by two gunmen. The murderers – Glenn Bethany and Emmanuel Littlejohn – were arrested and charged with robbing and murdering Meers. Littlejohn was sentenced to death, while Bethany received a life sentence in separate trials between 1993 and 1994.
As of July 2024: "163729 Williams Marcellus 12-30-1968 Black 6'4" 217 lbs Male"
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