Innocent on Death Row: Marcellus Williams & the murder of Felicia Gayle

Warning, this episode contains graphic crime scene detail and maybe sensitive for some listeners. All witnesses, pursas of interest, and suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now in true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. There are a few housekeeping things I want to go over first, and then we will get into right now in true crime. So officially, I've been at this podcast for a year and a half and I very much enjoy it. I love bringing you guys these cold case stories and sharing all the information I can find about them, sharing my thoughts and opinions. But two episodes a week is getting to be kind of tough. I'm not gonna lie, So I am going to officially scale back to one episode a week. I really wanted to start off doing two, and I think I made a year and a half. I missed like two weeks total. I think that is really good. So I am going to officially scale back to one episode a week, and there might be a little bonus episode here and there where I do an extra episode a week, but primarily I'm going to be releasing one episode a week, and I'm going to be releasing that episode on Thursday nights. It's going to be a lot easier for me to keep up with and a lot easier for me to really focus my attention on that one episode a week because right now, trying to record two episodes back to back pretty much because I want to have them ready for the week record right now in true crime, I just don't want to burn myself out on it, and I think that this is a good step in the right direction for me to continue to do it but not burn myself out. So I hope you guys will still tune in and listen. But I just don't know how some of these podcasters do multiple episodes a week. Two was doable, but it does get to the point where it's tough. But some of them do three and four episodes a week, and I just don't know how they do it. It is a lot of work, and I am solo. I'm doing it by myself. I'm researching by myself, I'm writing the script by myself. I'm doing everything pretty much by myself, so I am going to scale back, but I am still going to be giving you one episode a week and maybe an occasional bonus episode here and there. But I appreciate you all and thank you guys so much for the support. So last little housekeeping item, I want to talk about my friend Jewels from True Crime in Headlines. With Jewels and Jen has been working on producing her own investigative podcast called Missing in Hushtown that is highlighting the disappearance of mom and daughter Jennifer and Adriana Wicks in two thousand and four in Cross Plains, Tennessee. It launches. If you're listening to this, it's out. It's launched. I've been running the trailer for it for a long time and I'm going to tell you guys, it is going to be so good. Every one of you need to listen to Missing in Hushtown. Look it up. It's available wherever you get your podcasts. And Sunday night, I'm actually going to be releasing the first episode on my platform for you guys to hear. She has worked so so hard on this alongside of Jennifer's sister Casey and They've done a really good job at bringing the story to you guys. It is going to be eleven episodes. They're all going to be available at once. So if you love a good podcast binge that goes over one story, this is the one for you. Missing in Hushtown, please check it out and check out the episode that I release on Sunday night Monday morning. That is going to be the first episode of Missing in Hushtown. So in ELG. Murdon News, believe it or not, this is still an ongoing thing with them trying to get the verdict overturned and get him a new trial because of the jury tampering allegedly by the Clerk of Court Becky Hill. It was a whole thing. If you guys know, you know. But they are basically still in the process of the Supreme Court hearing the arguments for and against a new murder trial before they will officially make a decision. So it's ongoing. I feel like it's never ever going to end, but it is normal in a murder trial for there to be obviously an appeal process and all of that. So I will continue to keep you guys updated on that one and in the Black Swan murder trial. I briefly talked about it with you guys. She was found guilty. They are going to sentence her officially on October twenty second, so I will be sure to keep you guys updated on the However, there has been a new report of alleged jura misconduct, and the whole premise of this is there was a Law and Crime live feed on YouTube and somebody had commented on it during the live feed during the deliberations, and allegedly it was information that only could have been known to someone that was inside of that jury room. So of course that goes against everything that we know is right when you are serving on a jury and coming up with a verdict and a murder trial. So it's going to be interesting to see what comes out as far as that goes. Of course, she was found guilty, so there are going to be appeals and so on and so forth. And now this alleged jury tampering, which I feel like is so trending anymore, and I just don't understand how something like that could happen. But I will for sure to keep you guys updated on that as more begins to come out, because this is all just kind of breaking as of today. Okay, next thing I want to talk about is there is a new documentary on Netflix about Lacy Peterson, Scott Peterson, the whole thing, and I think it was really well done because they did have Lacey's mom on there, a lot of Lacey's close friends from her childhood were on there, and I think they did a really good job at laying it out and really focusing the documentary more on Lacey and who she was versus what happened to her, although that's obviously an important part of the story as well. And Peacock is coming out with a documentary on Tuesday the twentieth, and Scott is going to talk on that documentary for the first time and I am oh so eager to hear what he has to say, so you guys be sure to check those out. Last thing I want to talk about is they have arrested people in connection with the death of Matthew Perry, and I honestly thought that this was going to be coming. So they have five defendants. There are two doctors and Matthew Perry's live an assistant that have been charged in connection with his death. He of course was an addict. He had become addicted to ketamine when he was in the process of seeking treatment for his depression, and he was taken advantage of by doctors who sold him ketamine for thousands of dollars. There are text messages between the two doctors revealing that they knew that they were taking advantage of him and saying stuff like I wonder how much this moron will pay. One of the doctors sold ketamine to Matthew Perry's live an assistant and taught the assistant how to inject him with ketamine, knowing that he was not a medical professional. And then Matthew Perry then sought to obtain ketamine for less money than he was able to get it from the doctors, so he obtained drugs from street dealers via his assistant per the dea. The ketamine that ultimately led to his death was sold by these street dealers, and his assistant was the one who injected him with the ketamine. On October twenty eighth of twenty twenty three, which is the day that he passed away, and after his death was reported in the news, one of the street dealers texted the other delete all of our messages. So here you have a man who struggled very much with addiction. He was very open about his addiction struggles and how his addiction almost killed him, and he really fought to get out of it. And unfortunately, when you are somebody like Matthew Perry, you are very charming, you're very funny, people love you, you have money. You're going to be surrounded by a lot of yes people and people that won't actually try to hold you accountable. And addiction is a very powerful thing. And these people that surrounded him in the last few months of his life took full advantage of that, knowingly, took full of advantage of that. And it's really aggravating because this all could have been avoided. And I know at the end of the day that an addict is going to do what an addict's going to do. But you have five separate people who are contributing to this addict getting his hands on drugs and injecting him when he's not a doctor injecting him. His assistant was injecting him with this medicine when he's not a doctor and not trained in giving injections. It totally blows my mind. But I was surprised to see that news today. Surprised but not surprised. But I will continue to keep you guys updated on that. And that is going to do it for right now in true crime, and we are going to get started with today's episode. Okay, guys, today we are jumping in to a brand new innocent on Death Row. Death Row Series episode one that super needs our attention. So now is as good a time as any to tell you the story of Marcellus Williams. So today we are going to be talking about a man who needs our attention urgently because he is about to be put to death for a crime that DNA has proven he did not commit. I'm going to start off by talking about the crime and how it came to be that Marcellus Williams was put at the forefront of this case and found himself charged with murder. Felicia gale Picus, also known as Leicia, was forty two years old when she was found stabbed to death in her Missouri home in August of nineteen ninety eight. Lesia was a former reporter for the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, which is a newspaper that is based in Saint Louis, Missouri. She was married to a radiologist, doctor Daniel Picus, who worked at a local hospital. The home was in a gated community and this happened in broad daylight. The murder did appear to be robbery motivated, however, she was stabbed anywhere between ten and forty three times with a butcher knife from her own kitchen. Seven of the wounds that she received were fatal. Now, just from first glance, if a crime is committed with a weapon that the perpetrator doesn't bring with them, I always think that they had a plan A, and something happened and they had to go to their plan B, which your plan B should never be to commit a heinous crime and commit murder, but seemingly that's what happened in this case. It easily could have been that Lesia was home and this person didn't anticipate Lisha being home and they had to kill her because maybe she could identify who they were, or she could identify some features on this person, so they had to go with their plan B, which was to take a knife from her own kitchen and staff her multiple times. So obviously, with this being a case of we didn't plan this out very well. It was supposed to be a robbery and it turned into a heinous murder. The person that did this was an obvious monster and had a lot of hate in their heart and soul. But they also left a lot of DNA behind because after all, this wasn't a necessary planned murder. At least in my opinion, it doesn't seem like this was the plan going into this crime. Licia's purse, her husband's laptop, and some other small items were found to be missing from the scene. Hence why people thought investigators thought that this was robbery as an intent. I am now going to read a article from one of the local papers in regards to Lsia's murder. Police said late Wednesday that they had no motive and no suspect in the fatal stabbing of Felicia and Gail Pays. A former Post Dispatch reporter, volunteer and advocate for the disadvantaged. Lisa Gale, as she was known, was found stabbed to death Tuesday evening in her home and University City Police responded to a nine one one call about seven fifty pm and discovered Gaile's body. The house is in the sixty nine hundred block of Kingsbury Boulevard. Police released few details. We feel like we've got some promising leads, said Captain Jeffrey Keller. Sergeant Robert Spearman said Gail's husband, doctor Daniel Pikas, a Barnes Jewish Hospital radiologist, was at home when police arrived. He would not say whether pikis phone police. Gail, forty two, had been stabbed more than ten times, Spearman said, and the police found a knife near her body. Police said they were trying to determine whether the murder was linked to a break in and burglary in the neighborhood. On July twentieth, broken glass was found at Gile's home. Police wouldn't say where, but investigator said it was not yet clear whether the broken glass was a result of a break in. Police wouldn't say whether anything was taken. The house is in a private subdivision called Ames Place. The community is gated to keep out vehicular traffic, but allows pedestrians' entry. Neighbors said the area is quiet and mostly inhabited by professionals and academics. This is one of the best neighborhoods in the area, said Lee Durham. Gail's next door neighbor. It really kind of floored us. Family members and some of Gail's friends, says that as a reporter and an advocate, Gail was often remarkably sensitive to others and often saw the good in people. She recently wrote in a letter to a reporter, evil likes to sniff out a person's weakness and attack from there. Gail reported for the Post Dispatch for eleven years from nineteen eighty one to nineteen ninety two. After resigning from the papers, she volunteered tutor children and champion environmental and other social causes. She might have been diminutive in size, but she was never afraid to stand up for what she believed in, said Ellen Gardner, an assistant managing editor at the Post Dispatch who hired Gail in nineteen eighty one. She'd planted those little feet in those chunky, big shoes stand her ground. Gardner added, Gail had an unaffected demeanor and style of dress, characterized by her waist length hair and Birkenstock style shoes. At five foot one, Gail was slight of stature, but colleagues remember her having a big heart. Any time that Lesia Gile sank her teeth into something. She pursued it vigorously, said John Brophy, the paper's newsroom administrator. Gail was remembered for sending high notes to colleagues, congratulating them for doing their jobs well and commiserating with them about deaths in the family. The article goes on to talk about all of the amazing things that Lesha did in her life, in her career as a person, as a reporter, and it ended with we would rap protect our investigation and catch the person involved, then provide details to reassure the community. So there wasn't a ton of details that were let out about this crime. They did say that they thought it might be tied to a burglary, and they said that she was stabbed at least ten times, but they didn't really give away a lot more than that. So although the crime scene left many clues behind, there was trace DNA on the murder weapon because that was left behind. There was fingerprints, hair, footprints, and I am now going to go into a little more detail about exactly what happened that day in nineteen ninety eight, and this is all laid out in the appeal documents that were filed on Marcellus William's behalf, and it's just kind of going into exact detail of everything that happened that day, and we're going to talk about that, and then we are going to go from there as to what happened with the case. Daniel Pikis, who was Lesha's husband, had arrived home that day and he went into the house from the garage and up the stairs to the back door. He had noticed that the screen door was closed, but the back door was open, which he felt was extremely odd because he and Lisha always kept the doors closed and locked, even when they were inside and they were by themselves, they always kept the doors closed and locked. He opened the door and just for whatever reason, since that something was wrong, and he said that the kitchen was a complete mess. The freezer door was open and everything inside of the freezer had been rummaged through. And he said one of the kitchen drawers was open and a cardboard knife cover was thrown on the floor. He then called out for his wife. He got no response, and then he walked out of the kitchen into the front hall, and that is when he just covered that his wife had been brutally killed. He said she didn't have anything on except for a purple shirt, and from where he stood, he knew that there was a knife lodged into her neck. He then immediately called nine one one. He did not touch or disturb her body, and once law enforcement arrived, he learned that his wife had been stabbed multiple multiple times and had wounds to her head, neck, chest, and abdomen. There were some other things that were out of place. The keys that were normally left in the dead bolts on the front and back door were missing. The closet door in the office on the second floor was open, and there was also a drawer in Lesha's office desk that was open addressed. Her drawer in the primary bedroom was open, and the door of a closet in the bedroom was also left open. Doctor Pikis was not able to say if anything from the bedroom was missing or not. None of Lesha's jewelry was taken. Her wedding ring was in a dish in the walking closet, and there was four hundred dollars in a dresser inside of that same walk in closet. Investigators, of course, wanted to figure out what Licia's day was like leading up to this, and her day was kind of like any other. She would get up and go for a run after her husband left for work, and when she would return home, she would stretch and shower, and she would always put on this purple shirt and comb her hair. The investigator spoke with her neighbors, including one of her next door neighbors, who saw her in her running clothes at nine point thirty in the morning and she had stopped by the neighbor's house to share some bananas. This neighbor had been home all day long doing yard work and didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary. The mailman also saw Leicia around one pm in front of her door. Now, two neighbors did tell police that they saw a dark colored mini that was driven by a white male on the street that morning, and they thought that this was a little unusual. Again, this was a gated community and you could only get in and out if you belonged there, So who was this random person in the van? Police did believe that the perpetrator entered through the front door because there was a pane of glass on the front door that was broken, But none of the neighbors saw anyone that day at Leicia's front door. Now, although they did kind of think that this might have been a robbery motive. They weren't able to ever connect it to any of the other three robberies that had occurred in the neighborhood, so seemingly they were at a dead end. Despite all of the physical evidence and everything that they had collected from the crime scene, they really had nowhere to turn and no leads. So at this point the investigation was pretty much halted, and in May of nineteen ninety nine, Lesia's family offered a ten thousand dollars reward leading to an arrest and conviction for the person or persons responsible in Lesha's murder. Now Here is where Marcellus Williams first is mentioned. So about ten months after Leshaw was murdered, police ended up getting their first real lead. So a man named Henry Cole had gone to court the morning of June fourth, nineteen ninety nine for a probation violation. He ended up being released that day and from there he went ahead and called the University City Police Department and said that he had information on missus Gale's murder. Now, he had a very extensive criminal history. He had felony convictions that dated back to the mid sixties. He had been convicted of different offenses ranging from robberies to stealing two weapons, and his most conviction was because of a bank robbery and he ended up being sentenced to five years of probation. He violated his probation a total of six times, and there was just a lot of back and forth going on in Henry Cole's life at this point in time. He also struggled with addiction. He regularly used cocaine, marijuana, heroin. He also was mentally ill and had received different psychiatric treatments and also had been prescribed some different psych meds and these meds caused him to have hallucinations and they also caused him to have memory loss. So we have a lot going on with this complex individual that is about to implicate Marcellus Williams for murder. So Henry Cole said that he saw the news reports about the ten thousand dollars reward money, and on the day that he was released, he ended up saying that he had information. So he told the police that he had been following the case, but said that he very much came forward to collect the reward money and even asked if he could get the money up front, and they said you only get the money if there's a conviction in the case. He said that he had saw the story on the news and in the paper and realized that investigators weren't going to stop until they officially arrested somebody for Leisha's murder. So he basically said that he had been in prison with a man named Marcellus Williams, and one day Marcellus had read an article about the murder of Lesia and from there went ahead and confessed his involvement. So Henry Cole stated that everything that Marcellus told him was it all started because he needed money, so he took a bus to University City and he was trying to find a good house to rob. He also said that he carried a backpack so he would look like a college student because this area was predominantly a white area, white neighborhood, very affluent, and he ended up picking the house that he picked because there was a big tree that was in front of the house that would shield the neighbors from seeing the front door. Now, the house does have a large tree in front of it, but this tree does not in any way, shape or form shield the front door. Henry Cole then told police that Marcellus said that he took a chip hammer and broke a pane out of the glass windows on the front door and stuck his hand through and opened it. Once inside, Henry Cole said, Marcellus heard water running, went upstairs, ended up taking an Apple computer, a purse, and a wallet. He then went downstairs to take more things, but then the water stopped and he heard a woman yelling, and at this point in time, Henry Cole said, Marcellus went into the kitchen and took a knife out of the drawer, and the woman then came down stairs and he ended up attacking her and stabbing her. She did fight back. Henry Cole then claimed that Marcellus went upstairs after the attack, took off his bloody shirt and cleaned the blood off of his boot and his backpack, and he also stated that Marcellus had taken one of Lesia's shirts from her dresser and ended up putting it on and then walked out of the front door. He then went on to say that Marcellus walked down the street, went by some workers that were in the area, and took a bus back to where his girlfriend Laura Azarro was staying, now, we're going to get to Laura in a minute. Henry Cole went on to say that the only other person that knew about this crime was Marcellus's girlfriend at the time, who was named Laura. Like I said, we're going to talk about her in a minute. So Henry's story very much matched up to what was in the media at the time. Now, law enforcement and investigators didn't really release a ton of information except for pretty much what was in that newspaper article. And as you can tell, the newspaper article, along with the picture in the newspaper article which shows the house that Lesha was killed in, it all pretty much lines up with Henry's story. And he said when he was first told about this, he went ahead and wrote everything down so that way he wouldn't forget it. So he is of course eager to get his ten thousand dollars and hopefully get himself a little bit of leniency on his pending court cases and sentencing in all of that. So we have a guy who has come forward and implicated Marcellus Williams for the murder of Lesha. Now, it is important to note that at the time Marcellus Williams was serving a fifty year prison sentence for robbery of a donut shop. Marcellus is in jail at this point. He's going to be in jail for at least fifty years. And I think they were very much desperate to solve this case because it looked really bad on them that they had no viable leads after ten months. So they took Henry and they ran with Henry. So from there they go ahead and they contact Laura Azarro. Now I've seen her also called Lara. In the court documents, she is called Laura, so I am going to be referring to her as Laura. So Laura was very familiar to police. She had previously worked with them because she had been facing charges of her own and she acted as an informant. She had previously been arrested for prostitution and at that point in time, she came forward in September of nineteen ninety eight and said that she had information really to the murder of the woman in University City. But when investigators tried to speak with her, she refused to talk to them and she said, I don't really have information. I was just trying to get out of the arrest. So police tried to question her for a few hours and she was refusing to say anything. So after Henry Cole came forward and her name was mentioned, they went ahead to try to get back in contact with her because they thought that she might be able to help. If she is the only other person that knows about this because of Marcellus William's involvement, then they needed to talk to her, but they knew that it was going to be difficult to get her to talk to them, so they enlisted Henry Cole as an informant to try to get in touch with Laura Azarro and basically they gave him a pager and this was going to be the way that he is going to be able to contact her, which is really shady when you have one person that is saying Marcellus Williams did this murder, and then we're going to give you a pager so you can contact the other person and you guys can get your story straight basically, and then we can implicate Marcellus in this murder. It's just all around pretty shady. I know that stuff like this happens a lot, but holy Molly, the amount of underhandedness in this investigation is beyond me. So they were unsuccessful in Henry Cole getting anywhere with Laura Azarro, but she was arrested again on some outstanding warrants on August fifth of nineteen ninety nine, and they visited her in jail. Investigators visited her in jail and basically told her, hey, if you cooperate, we are going to drop all of your charges, and she did not want to cooperate. She was not receptive to this. So from that they said, hey, Leisha's husband has posted a ten thousand dollars reward in this case, and you're going to be eligible for the money if you helped doubt and of course nobody is going to turn down ten thousand dollars and also turned down the chance to get some of their charges dropped. These people are desperate and struggling in life, and yeah, they're going to do what they can to get out of it. But Laura still refused to cooperate and said that she didn't have any information about it. So we are now in November of nineteen ninety nine and they still don't have any new information in regards to the murder of Leisha we have Henry Cole's information, and that's just kind of pretty much at a standstill. So in November of ninety nine, officers again went to visit Laura Azarrow. Now, when investigators first got there, she was under the russion that she was under arrest because she had been back into sex work and drugs, and thought that that's why they were there, was to arrest her, and that's not why they were there. They offered again to help her because she did have some warrants out and said, if you help us and provide us with information in regards to Lesia Gile's murder, we are going to help you out with your warrants. And they also told her if she didn't help that she was going to be guilty of withholding evidence. So then she had that hanging over her head as well. So here's what Lisha had to say. She said that her and Marcella's had been dating for two or three months before he was arrested August thirty first of nineteen ninety eight for robbing that donut shop like I talked about earlier. Now, that was ten months before Henry Cole first went to police, and fifteen months before police first questioned Laura assorrow. She said that sometimes they would live in Marcellus's car and claimed that on the day of the murder, that Marcellus had drove her to her mother's house around nine am and then left and returned in his car about three pm. And she said when he picked her up that day, he was wearing a jacket zipped to the top, even though it was in the middle of August and it was extremely warm, and the car also didn't have air conditioner in it. She said that he also had a computer in the car, but ended up taking this computer to a house down the street and then returned without the computer. So Laura claims that she saw blood on Marcellus's shirt and scratches on his neck when he ended up taking off this jacket, and he said he was in a fight. And then she then watched Marcelli's take off his clothes, place in a backpack and throw it down a sore. Now I know I say that word weird, but wer sorry, guys. So the next morning, she said she went to retrieve her clothes from the trunk of Marcellus's car, and when she opened the trunk, she found a woman's purse and thought that Marcellus had been cheating on her and confronted him about it, and he said that I'm not dating her. She's a journalist at the Post Dispatch, and I murdered her. So after she shares this information, the next day, November eighteenth of nineteen ninety nine, police go ahead and they seize Marcellus's buick and this car had been parked in front of his grandfather's house. Now keep in mind, Marcellus is in prison at this point on the donut shop robbery charge. So this whole time, Laura has been able to access this vehicle, go in and out of it, put things in it, take things out. So we're talking fifteen months after the fact that this vehicle ended up being seized. So a lot of the evidence and testimony that ends up coming in Marcellus William's trial is the evidence of this laptop that was found in the home of a man named Glenn Roberts. So Laura said that Marcellus had pawned the laptop and Glenn Roberts ended up being the one that got this laptop. And one question, Glenn said that Marcellus had bought the laptop to him in a carrying case, and Glenn Roberts had paid him one hundred and fifty or two hundred and fifty dollars for the laptop. While this deal was being completed, Glenn Roberts said that Marcellus had told him that Laura Sorrow is the one that had given him the laptop and asked him to sell it for her, So he was just simply doing what he was told, at least that's what he had told Glenn Roberts. And this laptop was confirmed to belong to that of doctor Pikis, meaning that whoever initially had this laptop, it sounds to me more like it was Laura Azarro We're gonna talk more about evidence and DNA and all of that, but it puts her more closely related to the robbery and murder than it does Marcellis in my opinion. Now, there were some contradictory things with Laura's statement. She had claimed that Marcellus had told her that he had rinsed the knife in the bathroom after he stabbed Lisia, but that was not true because the knife was literally left inside of Lesia's neck. She also stated that Marcellus said he did not go upstairs because she ended up coming downstairs, but investigators said that there was blood in the upstairs bathroom and upstairs closet of Lesia. Leicia said that Marcellus had scratches on his neck, but the DNA testing Underlicia's fingernails did not detect the presence of any materials other than her own DNA. Laura's statements also claimed that Marcellas said that she was wearing a bathrobe when he killed her, but we do know that she was wearing that purple, long, purple night shirt type of thing. She also claimed that Marcella said that he ended up having to hide after he murdered Lesha because there was a neighbor that had stopped by the house, but that is not true because they interviewed all of the neighbors extensively and none of that came to be the truth. Laura said that Marcella said that he'd kind of gone through some of her belongings downstairs, but he never mentioned going through her refrigerator other parts of the kitchen. Now, if you remember when doctor Pikas gave his testimony, initially he said that the dining room and living room were not disturbed, but the kitchen was an obvious disarray. Somebody had gone into the freezer and had kind of gone through stuff. The kitchen drawers and all were opened. But none of this really worked with what Lesia was saying because it just didn't really match up. Laura also had claimed that she had told her mom about Marcellus's involvement in the murder, but when police spoke to her mother, she said she had not been told anything about it. So there was a lot of discrepancies, and not just Henry's but also Laura's statements. Nothing matched up. Everything kind of contradicted each other. So there's also a lot of differences between their two accounts, between what Laura said and between what Henry said. So Laura had said that Marcellus said he entered the home through the back door, and Henry said that Marcellus entered the home through the front door. Laura said that Marcellus drove to the scene of the crime, but Henry said that Marcellus took the bus. Laura said that Marcellus said that he never went upstairs, but Henry said that he went upstairs and washed himself off in the bathroom. Laura said that Marcellus said that he had to hide because there was a neighbor that came to the door, but Henry never mention anything about this. Laura claimed that Marcellus had targeted the house after casing it for a day or two and knew that she didn't have any children and that nobody would be home. But if you're really casing a home, you would know kind of her routine and when she's there and when she's not. And Henry said that the reason that Marcellus targeted this house and it was random, was because there was a tree that shielded the front door and the porch from the neighbors across the street. And more of Laura's testimony and statements changed over time. So Laura initially had told police that in November of nineteen ninety nine that the backpack that Marcellus was wearing came from Lesia's house, and later she claimed that she had saw Marcellus with the backpack before the murder. She also told police that Marcellus picked her up after the murder from her grandfather's house, and in a later interview she said that Marcellus picked her up from her mother's house. There's a lot of conflicting information here. She also initially told police that Marcellus walked down the street with the computer and returned without it, and she said that she wasn't present during the sale of the computer, but she could show the house that the computer was sold at, And then she later changed her story to say that she was waiting in a car parked in front of the house while Marcellus went inside to pond the laptop, and then when he came out of the house, he did not have the computer, but he left the house with some cocaine, so it might have been like a deal. You give me a computer, I'll give you cocaine. She also had claimed that she hadn't been back to Marcello's car since he was incarcerated at the end of August of nineteen ninety eight, but then said she had been to his car and that his grandfather had opened the trunk for her, and that at that point in time she didn't see anything from the murder in the trunk. So there's a lot of contradictions between Laura's story and Henry's story. And we have Marcellus now being accused of murder by two separate people, and from the day that they first brought charges on him for the murder of Lesia Gale. Marcellus has maintained his innocence and we still stand today in twenty twenty four. Marcellus maintains his innocence. He has always said that he was not the one who did it. He is not guilty. And it comes back to me talking about just because you're in prison for making a really bad choice previously in your life at a point in time when you maybe have no other way out, doesn't mean that it is okay for someone to slap murder charges on you and you just have to accept it. That is insane to me, especially when you are an innocent party. So a trial ensues. Of course, the judge circuit, Judge Emmitt M. O'Brien, did not allow testing of some of the DNA evidence that was found at the scene, and the jury ended up being eleven Caucasian people and one African American, and they ended up convicting Marcellus Williams of Lesha's murder in twenty twenty one, after the testimony from twenty two separate witnesses. Now, Marcellus was already serving a fifty year sentence because of the robbery that he had done at the donut shop, and he ended up being sentenced to death on August twenty seventh of two thousand and one by the judge Emmett m O'Brien. So we've talked about it in previous episodes. It does not take much a lot of the times in some of these cases for somebody to be thrusted to the forefront of a murder investigation. And it literally came from two people who all had a dog in the fight to say, this person did it and this is why. And unfortunately, when you're looking at someone who is already incarcerated on previous charges, it does not take a lot of convincing for people to say, oh, yeah, this person is probably guilty of murder as well. So, like I said, Marcellus has always maintained his innocence. He has appealed his case many times, unsuccessful. He was first scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in twenty fifteen. In all of the appeals, his defense ended up producing evidence that the DNA taken from the handle of the knife at the scene of the crime revealed an unknown male profile and did not, I repeat, did not match that of Marcellus Williams. The execution then ended up being pushed off until August twenty second of twenty seventeen. So, of course, when you're going through different appeals and the defenses coming up with this new DNA evidence, they were of course trying to get the Supreme Court to hear the new DNA evidence to decide if they would stay the execution or not. And the prosecutor in the case said that they were confident about the case despite the DNA, which is total bullshit because you're going off of circumbstantial evidence of what two X cons are saying. What the heck. So at the time, the governor issued a last minute state of execution and then from there the governor initiated a Board of Inquiry to examine the new DNA evidence and the other aspects of the case. This board subpoenaed both the prosecution and the defense and they were also able to meet with the state and defense attorneys in June of twenty eighteen. So this DNA evidence definitely suggested that another man was responsible and was a suspect. The DNA that was on the knife did not match that of Marcellus Williams, so this board which consists of five retired federal judges, had hearings in August twenty eighteen and from their governor, Mike Parson, was to receive what the board had can included and make the decision. So as of September of twenty twenty one, the board was still looking into these new findings. In June of twenty twenty three, so just last year, Governor Parson decided that he was going to dissolve the panel of these five judges without receiving their report, and decided to lift the stay on Marcellus's execution, and he said that it was time for the court to officially make a decision, and from there they decided that they needed to officially set a date for Marcellus Williams execution. In August of twenty twenty three, the Midwest Innocence Project ended up filing a lawsuit stating that the Saint Louis County Prosecuting Attorney said that they have convincing evidence of Marcellus Williams innocence and according to the Innocence Project and I one hundred and ten percent believe them. The Missouri Attorney General's Office has a record of dismissing DNA evidence that points to an accused person's innocence i e. Rodney freaking Lincoln. Look it up if you're not familiar. So on January twenty sixth of twenty twenty four, the Saint Louis County prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell ended up filing a motion in the Saint Louis County Circuit Court asking the court to vacate Marcellus William's death sentence. So, this is the actual prosecutor from Marcellus's case who is saying, we really mess this up and we need to vacate his death sentence because we don't think that he is guilty of this. And the reason that he is saying this is because he cited an effective assistance of council bias, in jury selection, and weakness of the overall police investigation. So he then went on to ask the court for a hearing to hear some of this new evidence and different parts of the investigation and the trial. It is also going to include the findings of three independent DNA experts who all have said that the male DNA on the murder weapon was not that of Marcellus Williams. So again. On June fourth of twenty twenty four, Marcellus Williams was set to be executed again, but because Marcellus has so many people that are backing him in his story and believe in his innocence, he was not executed on June fourth of twenty twenty four. So there is a hearing scheduled on August twenty first of twenty twenty four in a couple of weeks, and that is going to hopefully propel this case forward and get the death penalty sentence taken completely off of the table. Now, despite that there is this hearing on August twenty first, they came forward on July twelfth and said that Marcellus William's execution is going to move forward despite the fact that there is this pending lawsuit to overturn his conviction, and they say that they do not have the procedural authority to withdraw the execution order at this time. So that is where we stand as of right now in regards to Marcellus's case. There is going to be a call to action at the end of this episode because we only have a little more than a month before Marcellus is set to be executed. And we as a community have to do everything we can to come together and support him at this time and hope that this August twenty first hearing is going to be just what we need to halt the execution and get rid of the fact that he is on death row. So I did come across the Innocensproject dot org. They have their motion to vacate or set aside judgment and suggestions in support, and I think this document it is sixty three pages long, but it does a really good job at outlining everything from start to finish, and it does a really good job at showing why Marcellus is innocent and couldn't have possibly been the one that perpetrated this crime. So I am going to read through a few highlights and keynotes and points in this document because I do feel like this is a really important part of the story and I think tells us that Marcellus is innocent and whoever did kill Lesha is still out there. On August eleventh, nineteen ninety eight, Felicia Lesia Gale was found brutally murdered in her home. She had been a victim to a violent and bloody Her body was riddled with over forty three stab wounds. There was blood everywhere, blood on the stairs, on the wall near miss Gal's body, and in the upstairs bedroom. The crime scene was rife with physical evidence. The weapon, a kitchen knife, was left lodge in missus Gale's neck. Bloody shoeprints were present near a knife sheath in the kitchen, in the hallway leading to the front foyer, and on the rug near missus Gale's body. Bloody fingerprints were found along the wall, and hares believed to belong to the perpetrator were collected from Missus Gal's t shirt, her hands, and the floor. None of this physical evidence tied mister Williams to miss Gal's murder. Mister Williams was excluded as the source of the footprints, Mister Williams was excluded as the source of the hares found near missus Gal's body, which did not match miss Gaile or her husband, the home's only residence and thus were presumably the perpetrators, and mister Williams was not found to be the source of the fingerprints. Now, three DNA experts have reviewed the DNA testing performed on the knife, and each has independently concluded that mister Williams is excluded as the source of the male DNA on the handle of the murder weapon. Miss Gale's murderer left behind considerable physical evidence. None of that physical evidence can be tied to mister Williams. Prosecutors are bound by the ethics of their office to inform the appropriate authority of after acquired information or other information that casts doubt upon the correctness of the conviction. In this respect, public confidence in the justice system is restored, not undermined, when a prosecutor is accountable for a wrongful or constitutionally infirm conviction. They go on to say that the indirect evidence used to convict Marcellus has become increasingly unreliable, and then they talk about the new DNA expert testimony. It undermines confidence in Marcellus's conviction and his death sentence. Then it says, based on review of the evidence and additional investigation, the prosecuting attorney has concluded that one new evidence suggests that mister Williams is actually innocent. Mister Williams trial council was ineffective for failing to investigate and present evidence to impeach Henry Cole and Laura Assorrow. Mister Williams trial council was ineffective for failing to present mitigation evidence during the sentencing phase and for the prosecution improperly removed qualified jurors for racial reasons during the jury selection in violation of bats and versus Kentucky. In addition, the prosecuting attorney is undertaking additional review relating to the investigation of mister Williams that, if true, would demonstrate the investigation was intentionally or recklessly deficient and in violation of mister Williams's right to do process. So this is the prosecutor attorney that is coming out and saying all of this stuff, like we talked about earlier. He is the one that is saying, look, we got it wrong and this is why. And the evidence is laid out here, nicely presented in this nice little package. So that is Marcellus's story. Like I said, we have a hearing coming up August twenty first. I will be sure to keep you guys updated on that. But the State of Missouri is still planning on going through with this execution in September. If something doesn't happen in the next month and a half, we have less than fifty days until Marcellus is executed for a crime that he seemingly did not commit because none of the physical evidence lines up. They have all of these DNA analysis experts who are vouching in Marcellus's behalf to say that, yeah, there's no way that he could have committed this crime because the DNA that is present here does not belong to that of Marsas and the person that did this is still out there. And that's the really scary part about it, because Leicia literally was in her home, minding her own business when her space was invaded and this person callously took her life. And this person got away with it, So they're obviously feeling probably pretty good about themselves for getting away with murder. So yeah, they likely could do it again. When you have somebody who is falsely accused of murder, I have to imagine that that gives the real murder a sense of power and I can get away with anything because this other person is taking the fall for something that I did. So I do have a link to a petition that has been put out by the Innocence Project on behalf of Marcellus to help with the staying of the execution. I am going to be sharing that in my show notes. I will also be sharing it on social media. I do feel like this episode is so important to share because time is literally running out on Marcellus's life, and we can argue he made some bad choices in his life. He surrounded himself with not so good people, and he got implicated in a murder because of who he hung out with. It reminds me a lot of Julius Jones kid. Made bad decisions, hung around with not so good people, but that doesn't make them a murderer and it doesn't make them deserving of being on death row. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. It was a little bit different than anything I've done in a while, but I really feel like his case needed our attention and I appreciate each and every one of you, and I will see you next time for a brand new unsolved case. Bye.