The Missouri Supreme Court has denied a petition to stop the state's next execution scheduled for Tuesday.
Marcellus Williams is scheduled to die by injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the fatal stabbing of former Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle at her home in University City in 1998.
Williams' lawyers had asked the state's high court to stop the execution because of new evidence found in the case. But the court denied the petition on Tuesday night.
Williams' lawyers said new tests show that DNA found on the knife did not match Williams. The DNA matches an unknown male, according to an analysis by Greg Hampikian, a biologist with Boise State University.
A spokesman for Attorney General Josh Hawley said the state had enough non-DNA evidence to convict Williams.
Williams’ lawyers asked the court to appoint a special master to hear his claim of innocence or to vacate the death sentence and order his sentence commuted to life in prison.
Williams is also serving time for unrelated crimes.
The state’s high court had already put off Williams’ execution after his lawyers requested additional time to conduct the additional DNA testing.
Williams was convicted of killing Gayle, 42, at her home in the gated Ames Place neighborhood on Aug. 11, 1998. The prosecution said Williams was burglarizing the home when Gayle, who had been taking a shower, surprised him. She fought for her life as she was stabbed repeatedly.
A jury convicted Williams at a trial in 2001. He was sentenced to death by St. Louis County Circuit Judge Emmett M. O’Brien.
The judge also ordered Williams to serve consecutive terms of life in prison for robbery, 30 years for burglary and 30 years each for two weapons violations.
Gayle was a Post-Dispatch reporter from 1981-92. She left the paper to do volunteer social work with children and the poor.
Williams’ attorneys have claimed that the case against him was built solely on contradictory testimony from two “snitches” — his former girlfriend, Laura Asaro, and a former cellmate, Henry Cole — who were out for a $10,000 reward.
No forensic evidence ever pointed to Williams, who has maintained his innocence throughout, his lawyers have said.