On Tuesday, two death row inmates in the United States were put to death. Among them was a Black man who had been found guilty of murder but had maintained his innocence and had backing from civil rights organizations. Missouri, a state in the Midwest, condemned 55-year-old Marcellus Williams to death for the 1998 murder of former newspaper reporter Felicia Gayle.

The Missouri Department of Corrections reports that around 6:10 p.m. local time on Tuesday, he was declared deceased.

In 2008, Travis Mullis, 38, was executed in Huntsville, Texas, for stomping the death of his three-month-old son, Alijah Mullis.

In his last remarks, Mullis stated, “I do regret the decision to take the life of my son, I apologize to the mother of my son, the victim’s family.”

With the execution of both men by lethal injection, there have now been 16 executions in the US this year.
Williams has maintained his innocence, and Governor Michael Parson has been persuaded to postpone his execution by the NAACP human rights organization.

Parson said on Tuesday that despite objections, Williams’s execution in Missouri will proceed.

Mr. Williams has always maintained his innocence, but no jury or court—not even at the trial, appellate, or Supreme Court levels—has ever determined him to be innocent. Ultimately, the death penalty and his guilty finding were maintained, Parson said in a statement.

Additionally, a desperate plea to postpone Williams’ execution on Tuesday was denied by the US Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Social media users lamented Williams’s death, including British billionaire Richard Branson, who purchased a full-page advertisement in the Kansas City Star newspaper denouncing a “devastating miscarriage of justice.”

“It’s a shameful day for Missouri, and a shameful day for Governor Mike Parson,” Branson posted on X.

Felicia Gayle was discovered dead at her Missouri home in St. Louis after suffering 43 stab wounds from a kitchen knife during what seemed to be an attempted break-in.

Despite the fact that his DNA was not discovered on the knife or at the site of the crime, Williams, who had prior convictions for robbery and burglary, was found guilty based on the testimony of two former prison cellmates.

After it was found that the knife’s male DNA did not match Williams, the Missouri Supreme Court postponed his execution in 2015, and the state’s then-governor Eric Greitens did the same in 2017.

Local prosecutors started the process this year to reverse his conviction. On Monday, however, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously that Williams’s execution would go on.

In 23 US states, the death penalty has been outlawed, and in six more—Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee—there is a moratorium in effect.