In 1998, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Felicia Anne Gayle Picus was found dead in her home, stabbed 43 times. Police suspected a burglary had gone wrong. Marcellus Williams was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. The details of the allegations are being raised again by The Intercept because in June, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson lifted a 2017 stay of Williams' execution. Parson also terminated a board comprising five former judges who were appointed to examine Williams's case. Though the Midwest Innocence Project, which represents Williams, has filed a civil lawsuit seeking to invalidate Parson’s order, Parson's attorney general has asked the Missouri Supreme Court to toss the suit and clear the way for his execution.
Williams, now 53, has now spent 24 years of his life on death row because of the testimony of two informants, who both were facing prison time and responded to a $10,000 reward posted by Picus's family. Many of the details offered by the informants shifted throughout questioning, while others did not match the crime, according to the Intercept's reporting. Though Williams was convicted and sentenced to death, it was discovered years later that there was DNA on the murder weapon, a partial male profile that could not have come from Williams. That evidence helped lead to a stay, instituted by then-governor Eric Greitens in 2017 minutes before Williams's scheduled execution.
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