Marcellus Williams murdered by state complicit in genocide

Marcellus Williams

The lights went out at 6:10 on Tuesday, September 24. Lights go out for everyone naturally when it is time. But the glow of a precious candle is snuffed out far too frequently when murder and racism are the cause.

The Missouri Department of Corrections pronounced Marcellus Williams, who is Black, dead at 6:10 p.m. after lethal injection. He was tried for allegedly killing Felisha Gayle, who is white, at her home during a robbery.

Williams held on to his truth that he was innocent. And even the prosecutor believed Williams’ truth.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell presented a new DNA lab report showing that the murder weapon did not have Williams’ DNA and that the prosecutors mishandled the murder weapon.

Bell wrote in the motion to rescind Williams’ sentence: “Bloody shoeprints were present near a knife sheath in the kitchen, in the hallway leading to the front foyer, and on the rug near Ms. Gayle’s body. Bloody fingerprints were found along the wall. And hairs believed to belong to the perpetrator were collected from Ms. Gayle’s t-shirt, her hands, and the floor. None of this physical evidence tied Mr. Williams to Ms. Gayle’s murder.”

Williams was convicted on the testimony of two who were in legal trouble and promised $10,000 in reward money.

The NAACP and the Council on American-Islamic Relations also tried to stop Williams’ execution, as did two jurors: “After considering this new DNA evidence, it is something I would have considered at the guilt phase and it may have made a difference with the jury,” the foreperson said.

“Having reviewed this information, I am disturbed that none of this was presented at trial and that the jury never had the opportunity to consider it. … I strongly believe that had this information been provided to the jury, it would have made a difference in the verdict and sentence,” said an alternate juror.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the appeal for a stay, as did Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons, who would not consider evidence that came to light as early as 2017 about the DNA that was not Williams’.

It was not hidden. Reports hitting the major news media almost two weeks before the execution exposing the evidence and the very public pleas from the prosecutor and family were easy to see, especially toward the view of Democratic and Republican candidates vulnerable to their response to the execution.

Time, ABC, NBC, USA Today, Reuters, and other corporate news media could easily be seen by candidates such as Trump and Harris. Both remained silent, even after the Rolling Stone inquiry to Harris: 

“Meanwhile, the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris — once a critic of the death penalty — has seemingly gone silent on the topic, even after President Joe Biden promised in 2020 to stop federal executions and propose legislation to abolish the death penalty at the state level. The Democratic Party platform this year, for the first time since 2004, lacks any mention of the death penalty. The campaign has not returned several requests for comment.”

Silence equals complicity, especially when your position of power could and would make a difference. Neither President Biden nor Vice President Harris chose to lift a finger nor make a peep.

And, those who could make a difference in Legislative or Executive branches didn’t even seem to mind when a Black man was executed four days earlier, also despite evidence of innocence.

Freddie Owens was put to death in South Carolina by lethal injection on Sept. 20, the Friday before the Tuesday execution of Williams.

The primary witness, Steven Golden, on Wednesday before the Friday execution, signed a sworn statement that he lied to escape the death penalty: “I did that because I knew that’s what the police wanted me to say, and also because I thought the real shooter or his associates might kill me if I named him to the police,” he said. “I am still afraid of that. But Freddie was actually not there.”

Again, the U.S. Supreme Court and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster chose to ignore the evidence and refused to block the lethal injection in Owens’ Black skin.

Owens was given a choice – the electric chair, the firing squad, or the needle. He let his lawyer pick.

There is evidence that some are not entirely unconscious from drugs preceding the poison in the needle.

And again, there is nothing but silence and complicity from the Legislative and Executive Branches, including the presidential candidates.

Since 2015, the killing of Black and Brown people by police has continued to break the yearly record year after year, and 2024 is on track to beat 2023.

From 2000-2016, there had been 1,300 on-duty police shootings in L.A. County alone, with not one cop being prosecuted at that time. A bill, AB 86, would have taken the decision of prosecuting killer cops out of the unwilling hands of prosecutors and given that power to Attorney Generals, forcing them to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate cop killings. Then-Attorney General Kamala Harris opposed this.

Harris’ support for the genocide here in the U.S. mirrors her for support for genocide outside the U.S. — in Gaza. 

In 1989, five Black and Brown youths that were framed for rape in New York’s Central Park. These children were abused by the cops and forced to give a confession after 24 hours of terror. Even though the youths did not plead guilty, they were convicted. Trump paid $85,000 to place full-page ads in the New York Times, Daily News, Post, and Newsday calling for their execution. After several years in prison, the DNA proved their innocence, and the culprit was found. They were released.

Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park Five, ran for office and is now a New York City Councilmember, District 9.

If they had received a death sentence and the DNA evidence came out after the trial and appeals were done, like in the case of Williams and Owens — it wouldn’t matter.

And like Kamala’s complicity of silence, Trump, to this day, says his action calling for the execution of the five was correct.

Marcellus Williams’ son said: “This is murder.”

What is it called when the government murders people of color through both direct and indirect enabling and silence, which allows ethnicity to be the basis for the denial of the privilege of life? It is called genocide. And it is telling when the promoters of genocide fall into the same ethnicity as the targeted.

Diversity is a good thing, but the ruling class can also use it in a manner that serves genocide.

Genocides carried out by presidents, former presidents, vice presidents, justices, and governors cannot be tolerated, even when they look like the targeted.

Their shameful complicity in genocide cannot be tolerated.

And it won’t be – not in Africa, Latin America, in the Global South, by the international working class, and right here in the U.S. Genocide will be stopped — by any means necessary.


Join the Struggle-La Lucha Telegram channel