You're listening to a Mumma Mia podcast. Mamma Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waders. This podcast was recorded on It's a Tuesday evening on the twenty fourth of September twenty twenty four in the American state of Missouri, and Marcellus Williams is preparing to die. He's been sentenced to death by lethal injection for the stubbing murder of Felicia Gale, a local reporter who was found dead in
her home in nineteen ninety eight. Williams has been on death row since two thousand and one, but doubt has been cast over his guilt, a lot of doubt. The fifty five year old's lawyers, the victim's family, the prosecution, and the jurors who convicted him have all admitted he may not be guilty, but those in charge aren't listening. The governor has denied appeals, the Supreme Court hasn't intervened,
and so here we are. Williams has consumed his final meal of choice, chicken wings and tater tots, and said his final words, all Praise be to Allah. In every situation. He is pronounced dead at exactly six ' ten PM. But what does the evidence show? Should Williams have been spared? Did Missouri just execute an innocent man? I'm Jemma Bath and this is True Crime Conversations, a mum of Mere podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
the people who know the most about them. Marcellus Williams was the one hundredth person executed in Missouri since nineteen eighty nine. Officials from the Missouri Department of Corrections addressed the media after his.
Death, we hope this gives finality to a case has languished for decades, revictimizing miss Gale's family over and over again. No juror nor judge has ever found Williams innocent's claim to be credible. Thus the order of execution has been carried out.
What this press conference fails to address is the mounting evidence that suggested that Williams case wasn't as water tight as this statement by Governor Mike Parson made it sound. Even if Williams was guilty, what those fighting to save his life insisted was there was reasonable doubt in this
conviction that alone should have saved his life. Three months before his execution, host and creator of the true crime podcast One Minute Remaining, Jack Lawrence spoke to Williams on the phone from prison.
There's obviously people in the community who would you listen to your story and people would turn around and say, oh, well, you know, this guy was a career criminal, he was out of prison. You know, why should we trust what he says?
Well, marvais Mons would be you know, if you believe in democracy, and you believe in the justice system that's set up in this country, then you understand that the rule of law is supposed to governing in regardless of whatever I was going through. Those choices that I made in those other cases have absolutely nothing to do with this case.
Here.
Everything is supposed to be just in the light in which they come and being presented to people.
After speaking to Williams and getting to know him, Jack also joins the fight to save his life. Jack joins us, Now, Jack, how did you find yourself chatting to Marcellus Williams from prison mere months before his execution?
So I spotted I was on LinkedIn as you are sort of scrolling through. I follow the Innocence Project on LinkedIn. Obviously because of the sort of work I now do, and they put up a post about Marcellus Williams and the fact that you know, it's a bit of a call to action to try and help him, because, for those who don't know, the Innocence Project in the United States works with people that they believe who have been wrongfully convicted, and they work to try and help them
become exonerated. And he was one of their clients, and they put a post up about him, and I sort of did a bit of looking into his story, and then I reached out to him, as I do with most of the men and women who I find who are incarcerated, sent him a message. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, because I've tried to talk to people on death row before, and they're under a far more stricter rules than sort of regularly people who are incarcerated. So I wasn't sure how I was going
to go. But and I've never actually spoken to someone who'd been given their date like I've reached out to people who are on death row, because people spend many, many, many, many many many years on death row prior to actually be given their date.
Well decades even yeah, yeah.
I mean some people even die on death row of old age before they even get to the you know, the death sentence. So he was the first person that I had come across who actually been given this date. So I sent him a message and sort of introduced myself and told him what I do and I would love to talk to him, and he said, yeah, happy to sort of to you. I will give you a call.
And again I wasn't sure how that worked because most of the people I speak to they use the sort of phones in the wreck room, you know, the phones in there, and they call me from there. So I knew he wouldn't be in that situation. I knew he would be in his cell, so I wasn't sure whether they'd take him out of his cell to use a phone. But anyway, long story short, he calls me. You know, I said, I'll say how we're speaking at the moment.
He said it whenever someone gets given their date, as in, you know, this is your final date, this will be your execution, which was for him was for three months time. One of the so called privileges they get, I guess, is as a phone permanently in their room, which they're allowed to use to call loved ones. I suppose attorneys. So yeah, so he literally had a phone within his within his cell, and he was essentially confined to his
cell and that was it. I said to him, like, you the only person on the row as they call it, at the moment. He goes, no, No, he's a guy next to me, mister house. He said, he's got his date actually for next Tuesday.
Wow.
And that was a real sobering like thing that his next door neighbor was up for his eight following Tuesday and this mister hows and gentleman was killed the following Tuesday. So yeah, so that's basically how it all came about.
Well, it really would be a privilege then having that phone when you're so alone, and all of a sudden you've got this lifeline to the outside world that you can use, I'm assuming whenever you want.
Yeah, I believe it was a case of using when you're over ever you're on. Because people are incarcerated, they do have access to phones, but there's obviously a time period where they have access to those phones. They're switched on and switched off. You know, they can't use them during what they call count times. Obviously they go around and make sure everybody is there and no one's decided
to leave the prison a certain amount of time. Some facilities give them fifteen minutes to talk and then it just cuts them off. Some are thirty minutes, others are ten minutes and then they have to wait that alloted time again before they can use the phone again. To stop people obviously using the phones. There's other people I talked to incarcerated who can't use the phones because gangs
control the phones. So the fact he had his own phone, yeah, was essentially it was a privilege, you know, But I mean that privilege came with the fact that he was going to die in three months, so you know, it's a odd privilege, shall we say?
Yeah, of course, how many conversations did you have with him? And what kind of rapport did you build with this man?
Actually far less of a rapport with him than most of the men and we might speak to purely because of you know, the situation he was in. We I only spoke on the phone once. I did try and get back on the phone with him again, but you know, he obviously had a bigger fish to fry than speaking to some podcast bloke in Australia. But We did have a lot of messages backward and forward ya sort of email that he had access to a tablet where he could send out email via the prison mailing system. So
we had some messages backward and forward conversations. But it's I find my conversations speaker and castro are very difficult, knowing the right thing to say and what you know, you don't want to say the wrong thing. And it was even harder with a man who was in his position, because of what do you say? What do you say to a man's who's literally been told you're going to die on this date at this time. But we had, you know, we had some back and forth. I really
enjoyed my conversation with him on the phone. You know. He was a very articulate man, you know, seemed like a very nice man. I mean, he was no choir boy. You know, he had an extensive record and he openly admits to that. You know, so I'm not trying to sit here go oh, you know, play the violin sort of thing. He did the wrong thing a lot of times in his past. I personally, I'm not sure about the one he was killed for. I certainly don't believe
he should have been killed for it. But yeah, I enjoyed our conversation, and like I do with most of the people are I speak to are incarcerated who you know, I enjoy my conversations with these people because you know, they're deep thinkers a lot of the time, and he was a deep thinker.
Well, as you've alluded to, you speak to so many men and women in prison, some of them on death row, and a lot of them telling you that they're innocent. Have you started to kind of be able to tell if they're telling the truth or if you believe that they're telling the truth.
Yeah, it's funny should I say, because one of my recent episodes I covered this, Because you know, I do get a lot of people telling me, telling me that they're innocent, and so many people say to me, oh, you can't believe them all, And of course I don't believe all of them. I don't think I've got the answer to who is truly innocent and who is you know, guilty, Because obviously I talk to a lot of people who say they're innocent. I believe a number of them. I
wholehelfly billion. I believe a number of them, But I sort of found this sort of tell with people who I think are more genuine should I say, as opposed to absolutely in this but more genuine, and that is that they their empathy because the way I see it, you know, a lot of the people I'm talking to have been committed for the crime of murder, and that to me is a very selfish act in itself. Yeah, you know, people who commit murder have done it as
a selfish you know, it's just a selfish act. It is, whether monetary purposes, because of anger over whatever it was. It's a selfish act. And there's people who I talk to who have been convicted of that crime who say they're innocent, and it's all about them. It's them, them, them, them, I'm innocent. I will I'll prove my innocent's all, you know, I'll show them when I get out of here. Blah blah blah, you know what. And it's it's very intense. And that the people who say they're innocent, who I
find more genuine they asked me about myself. You know, there's a guy called Tarek mcpool who have spoken to and this is actually in his episode I talked about this because you know, every message you would send me would ask me about my family, and you know, my father was very sick when we were talking, and he would ask me about how my father's going, and just
a lot of empathy there. And when you spoke to them on the phone, very quietly spoken, very apathetic, very you know, there was empathy there.
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, that's one little tell I think I've got.
Did you get any of those tells with Marcella's.
Ah, he actually he did. He sent me one of his messages asking me about because again, my father was my father was sick for a long time. So I was saying, mother, I was sick. And you know, I do try and build a rapport with these men and women I speak to, and I'm very comfortable talking about my personal life with them because I'm asking them to share with me their life, so I'm you know, I share myself as well. And he did ask about my father, said my father would be in his prayers because he's
a very religious man. You know, he'd he'd become a Muslim while in prison, So there was that, and he was a nice, softly spoken man. And you know, again that's not doesn't mean much, you know, because I'm sure there's serial killers out there that were softly spoken people. But yeah, I just I just got a sense of, you know, not an angry man, which you would expect someone to be, I suppose, you.
Know, if they're preparing to die.
Yeah, yeah, and not in that. There's people I speak to who have been wrongful in charscer that I know, I truly believe a wrongfully incarcrot because if you look at their case and it's a no brainer and they're not as angry as they should be in my opinion, Like there's a gentleman, ever Esa Salis Junior, who actually we may have spoken about we did previously and he's been exonerated now, and he was the same, you know, just so empathetic, so calm, thoughtful, like he was looking
at it, you know, in a very philosophical way and you're like, how are you doing this? Whereas there's other people are just angry and they're just like, I will prove my innocence, you know, just like wow, Okay, So yeah, I did feel that with Marcello's that sort of you know, gentle, sort of thought full, philosophical side of it.
Let's go back to the start. What kind of upbringing did Marcellus have?
So he grows up in Missouri, in Saint Louis. He's the third of four boys. He grew up in his grandparents home with his mother. No father figure that in his life, apart from his grandfather, who said, you know, was a hard worker and were working to take care of the family. But no real sort of solid like his father wasn't in his life. He sort of says, his childhood was happy. I mean they were poor, but he said that you know, they never went without food
or anything like that. So from a young age there was you know, apart from having no father, said the family was close, tight knit family. You know, there was no from what he told me, there's no abuse or anything like that, just poverty. Really, he said it was when he got to his teens that he started going a little bit wayward, as a lot of people do. I suppose when you're a teenager and you want to
se the boundaries and all that sort of stuff. And he said, you know, he started seeing people with things, you know, nice clothes and that sort of stuff and started wanting for those things, and he essentially started just going the wrong way. About obtaining those nice things, and you know that came in the form of burglaries and bits and pieces. And in fact, he found himself incarcerated for the first time in nineteen eighty eight at the age of eighteen.
Yeah. Well, because he had about sixteen convictions prior to being arrested for the murder.
Yeah, he was in and out, in and out. So he goes in in nineteen eighty eight. I believe he did about a year on that one and was out in the end of eighty nine. And that one was for So when they say, you know, sixteen charges, there's probably multiple charges because the first time he goes in there was a motor vehicle burglary charge and assault on a police officer.
Which is probably wrapped up to one.
Yeah, yeah conviction. He had multiple charges in that. And then when he came out, he says, he gets he got a job, and he started actually going to a trade school. He had a partner, and then his first child came along at that stage, so he was trying to work to be better and to not go down that route. But he said, eventually the pool of the criminality just again easy money as opposed to know what he was trying to do to get ahead with his family,
and he ends up basically back in prison. I think it was January of nineteen ninety So he wasn't out for very long and he was back in again, and that was for a seven year stretch. So again multitude of charge is involved in that one as well. And then he comes out of prison and then again he's not out for very long at all, and he was back into prison in nineteen ninety eight, and then they he was never released again.
So the body of Felicia Gail was found stabbed in her apartment in the August of nineteen ninety eight. Firstly, what do we know about her?
So newspaper reporter, was a newspaper reporter, but a social worker as well. She was married essentially, you know, a lovely person, did no wrong, you know, she was just an all round lovely person, you know, and that's I think, you know. And they lived in her and her husband lived in a reasonably affluent part of town, you know. And this is why again it caused so much uproar, because not only was this a murder, but it was
quite a brutal murder. I mean, I think she was stabbed over forty times, maybe forty two times she was she was stabbed, so of course, I mean, you know, the community was just in uproar about that situation. How this lady can be just at home. You know, she was reportedly in the shower. I've got out of the shower and that's when she was brutally stabbed. I mean, forty two times is obviously horrific. Yeah, it's insanity.
You're listening to true crime Conversations with me, Jemma Bass. I'm speaking with journalist Jack Lawrence about the execution of Marcellus Williams. Up next, we talk about the evidence that was left at the crime scene and how it was used to convict Williams of murder. Do we know anything about the crime scene, whether there was any evidence.
Well, this is a thing, and this is why this case has been so I suppose it's caused so much attention because of the amount of evidence that was at that crime scene that didn't match Marcellus Williams. So we'll start. There was hair found, for instance, to start with, So there was hair found near Felicia at the time. I think some may have been on her and nearby her was found. I was tested did not match Marcellus Williams, nor did it match her. So the question mark became
whose hair is that? There was like, apparently a plethora of fingerprints, bloody fingerprints, But apparently I've heard different stories as opposed to what was the issue with these fingerprints, But there was some that stated that basically the prints weren't of a good enough quality, any of them to actually come up with a match for anyone, let alone Marcellus Williams. And then I heard somewhere along the line that they may have even just disap here. They've been
thrown out the evidence that was gathered there. Then you've got a bloody footprint that it was pointing in the direction of leaving the scene of the crime, which was again tested against Marcellus for the size. Obviously they could get a good idea of the size of the footprint, and it was too small to be Marcellus's foot. So again the question is, well, who's made that bloody footprint? You know? But the biggest one, of course is the knife.
The knife that killed Felicia was left still in her view. She had the knife still in it when they found her, and that was obviously the biggest piece of evidence. But the weird thing was that was never tested for DNA or anything at the time. For some reason, that was just never tested and it wasn't until later down the
track that that knife would actually be tested. And that was the biggest conjecture about this whole case, because initially it comes back that Marcellus has been excluded from that knife, like his DNA is just not on there. But then there was DNA on that and the biggest thing that came out was it belonged to one of the prosecutors in the case. And then he eventually actually had had an evidentiary hearing that was had not that long ago.
He admitted to mishandling the murder weapon, handling it without gloves basically, and he wasn't the only one. Multiple people had done it. So in fact, they destroyed any chance of ever working out whether Marcellus's DNA was on that knife or not. And the prosecutor's office, you know, openly put their hands up and said, you know what, this
is completely we've messed up here. This is you know, blah blah blah, and they actually spoke, They actually made a deal with Marcellus's defense team to commute his sentence from death to life in prison. Marcellus wasn't going to admit to have committed this crime, but they said, look, we will agree to commute this down to a life
sentence and take away the death penalty. He agreed to that because obviously you can't fight your case if you're dead, So he agreed to that, hoping that they could continue the fight and eventually something will come out that will fully exonerating It. Was like the best of a bad situation, really, but unfortunately the Attorney General of Missouri got involved and fought that, and the High Court came back and reinstated the death penalty.
I want to get to that series of events in more detail soon, but firstly, if we go back to the start, were there any other suspects that we know of apart from Marcella's.
No, It's one of those situations that they didn't have any lead. There was actually a similar burglary that it had happened not that long prior to that, but they had no one for that either, you know, very similar mo, but they had no leads on anyone, and it was only until the old classics prison snitch comes along that
they finally had a suspect. And this is the issue that I find in so many cases that I deal with, is that police having no leads, especially in their cases where you hear this a lot or they were under a lot of pressure to get us at this one, so they're under a lot of pressure. And when the cops are under a lot of pressure, what do they want to do? Quickly solve this case so they've got no more pressure. So if someone comes along to him and says, yeah, this is the guy who did it, okay,
tell us more. They had so little to go on with this casel, so we had no one that the partner of Felicia, her husband at the time, offered up a reward ten thousand dollars for information that would lead to an arrest. And it wasn't until that reward was announced that hey, amazingly, all of a sudden, this guy has had a full confession from Marcellus Williams as to him committing this crime. And apparently it was an in
prison confession. Marcellus was in prison with this guy, whom Marcellus told me was actually a distant relative of his, and he didn't realize and they ended up being incarcerated together, and literally as this guy's released, he goes straight to the place that says, oh, yeah, I know who did this. He told me about it. He admitted to it. And not only that, one of Marcellos's former partners she also basically joined forces with this guy who was in prison
and said, yeah, Marcellus definitely did this. You know, she said, I saw him with this purse. Then we've got this laptop issue that we can talk about because there were items belonging to Felicia Gow that were found in Marcellus's grandfather's.
Car, which is a strange link to get to. So has Marcellus admitted to anything in this case? Did he steal from Felicia?
No? So, because this is the thing people come back to, is like the biggest argument is like, well, if he had nothing to do with it, how on earth has he got her stuff? And I was the same, I'm like, well yeah, I mean as soon as I heard that, I'm like, oh, okay, this isn't good because you've got stuff. In fact, he even sells the laptop that belonged to Felicia's husband to a guy for drugs or something. I think, I don't know. If it was. I think it was drugs that he was sort of swapping it for. So
I'm like, well, okay, well this doesn't look good. But once you dig into that further more question marks come up. So you find out that his former partner was working as a sex worker and she was sleeping in his grandfather's vehicle using it, and she was also using that vehicle to conduct her business. And Marcellus admitted, you know that he did take this laptop to this guy. And they had actually the guy who took the laptop from Marcellus on the stand to testify, yes, Marcellus Williams did
sell me this laptop. He was going to also say that what Marcellus brought the laptop and said that he got it from his girlfriend. She'd given it to him and said, here, take this and go and swap it for sell it for drugs or whatever. But the guy who got the laptop was not allowed to testify to that part of it. He was only allowed to testify to the fact that Marcellus had sold him the laptop or swapped it with him for drugs.
Which sounds bizarre because isn't that an important detail that.
They call is hearsay. They say it's a hearsay. So hearsay is you know him saying, well, marcell has told me that he got it from his girlfriend. That's heresay. He didn't see Marcellus get it from his girlfriend. He's got no way of knowing of Marcell's actually did get it from his girlfriend. That's just what Marcello's telling him. So the judge said, it's heresay, it's not allowed in. But for me, I agree, it's a very important factor of that case because there is a theory and I
put that in. It's just a theory, but there is a theory that, you know, if it wasn't Marcellus who committed his crime, the theory is that it could have, in fact been a quote unquote client of his former partner who committed the robbery and had exchanged what he got from the robbery with her for her services. She's then gone to Marcellus and said, hey, look I've got this laptop, take that, sell it whatever. That's how he has possession of the items. Now people say, oh, that's
a bit of a stretch. It's like, okay, but it's not impossible.
And if we look at what Marcellus was charged over. It was those links, right, So he's actually charged with murder based on these items that were found in this car.
And the testimony of the girlfriend and the or the former girlfriend and this guy from prison who stood to get ten thousand dollars for their testimony, And there was also evidence to show that his former girlfriend and the guy who in prison had multiple calls phone calls back and forth while he was in prison before he left. Why are they talking and what are they talking about? Is the question. And not only that, on top of that, you have other people from both those people's lives who've
made statements. So you've got the son of the guy who said that Marcella's admitted to him. He's come forward and made a statement saying that his dad had mentioned that he was going to be coming into some money because of a caper that he was running. And then the girlfriend or the former girlfriend, some of her friends had come forward and said that she'd openly even admitted to the fact she was setting him up to get
the cash. So there's a big thing that all these people are like, oh, you know, it's so funny because I've seen obviously some people who have staunched the fact that Marcella's one hundredercent guilty, you know, deserve what he got. And you know, they they come up and say, well,
how has he got his stuff? And you know, how did this guy you know know details about what had happened, and said, well, there's always you know, things that I can give you to say, well this is how it could have happened, and they go, oh whatever, yeah, sure, like I mean, you know, oh yeah, that could have happened. It's like, but it could have. It really could have. So what I'm saying is what I've always said the whole way through, is like, I'm not saying that he's
one hundred percent innocent. What I'm saying is there's far too many question marks around this case to make it that final where we're going to say we're going to kill someone.
Especially when you know, we were just talking about hearsay. But here we are believing the testimony of two people, but we're not allowed to believe the testimony of anyone else in those people's lives.
And what's amazing with that? You find as well in these cases, especially with these whole snitch cases, where there's people from prison who come up and give the cops essentially what they need for a conviction. And I've seen it happen in the past. Happened in the Everyessalist junior case. A snitch in that case was the reason that he got arrested. And eventually that snitch recandied. And then what they say is once someone recanns, they go, well, we
can't trust that person. He's a criminal. It's like, well, hold on a second, and that's literally what they said. Ever reesa Salis junior case, they said, well, we can't trust him, he's a criminal. It's like the whold of a second. We were trusting him before when.
You used that evidence.
Yes, that was your evidence to get him convicted in the first place, but now it's not, you know what you want to hear, Oh, we can't trust that person. So you know, and this snitch thing is just it's so rife, and it still is in the US. So they stood to gain from Marcellus being found guilty again
ten thousand dollars, you know. And it was funny because that guy even got more help because Marcella's when he was finally charged with this, he wanted a speedy trial and you know, you have the right in America, two way speedy trial. So he said, I want a speedy trial. And his lawyer, he said, was actually trying to talk him out of pushing for a speedy trial, and he's like, I don't understand why he was doing that, and he said,
I regret. He ended up going with the atturney saying okay, all right, well we won't push for that because I think the attorney was like, you know, we need time to build a better defense. Whereas he later found out that the prosecution that had lost their key witness, the guy he just disappeared on them like they've given him some money and he'd gone off somewhere to blow the money and you know whatever he was doing with it.
So they needed time to get him back because otherwise he wouldn't even back in time to give the evidence.
How did the trial go, because that was in two thousand and one.
Yeah, so, I mean the biggest thing about the trial was I believe it was very quick. But the other issue was surrounding the jury. So you know, jury of your peers, it was not There was eleven white people
and one black person. And this was another issue that was brought forward in fact by the prosecutor's office, because it was in fact the prosecutor's office that was pushing to have Marcellus's sentence downgraded, not the old prosecution, this new So there's a Wesley Bell who's the new prosecutor of Saint Louis, and he's the one that said there's issues with this case. There's a lot of issues with
this case. And one of those issues they had was with this jury selection and how four African Americans were removed from that jury, and essentially they believed wrongly removed from the jury, and they believed it was a race removal. I mean, there's not much you can much else you can say that it is if you're just taking four people of the jury and they're all African Americans.
And it's a case involving a person that is.
Black African American exactly, and it's just like, you know, eleven to one, eleven you know, white people and one black person. When it comes time for deliberation, I mean, it's not going to take much for all those people to gang up on one person so he's guilty and then they cave unless they're the most solid human being
on earth. So trial wise, that was essentially one of the the biggest issues from trial was this this jury selection and how that was handled, and one of those things that was brought up, but that was later dismissed. In an evidentiary hearing. You know, I think the procecut came forward and said, I it wasn't a race thing, and this is the reason I did it, And the judge was fine with that and said, okay, yeah, that's reasonable.
So, as we know, Marcellus was given the death penalty as a result of that trial. Of his conviction. He was first scheduled for execution in twenty fifteen and then again in twenty seventeen. Why didn't they go ahead? What happened?
He was lucky enough to get a stay of executed one of the times. I think the second time, he was literally I think an hour away from the chair, can you imagine, and the governor, I believe at the time stepped in. The governor of the state has the power to step in and say no. The latest governor did not step in, obviously, but this previous governor did looked at it and said, you know, I think we need to look at this more. So it's just about who's in power. At the time. Really, you know, that's
all it comes down to. And what amazes me the most is that the only reason really that this ever made it back into some sort of evidentary hearing was because of the office that put him there in the first place. You know, you've got the prosecutor's office going, guys, this isn't doesn't look right. And in recent times they've in fact exonerated like three people, one of which I've spoken to while he was still in prison. Christopher had done and it's all off the back of this prosecutor
who's brilliant, Wesley Bell. You know, he's doing what a lot of prosecutors don't do and actually looking at these cases properly and saying, no, there is an issue here, and he's going in fighting for these people. And the thing is he's coming forward and saying, you know, this
is wrong. I think this needs to be overturned. And half the time he's the only option that they've got because if they've exhausted all their appeals, they've got nothing left, and the prosecutor has the power to say no, this needs to go back in front of a judge to be looked at. And then he did it again. He did it. This time he said this needs to go back to court to be looked at. I mean he initially recommended that the Marcellus speaks on or it completely.
And then when the DNA came back, and then they couldn't actually fully exclude Marcellus because it just you know, they've mishandled it and there was just no way of even telling if his DNA was on there at all. That's when he said, well, look, this is what we agree to. Even Felicia's family agreed to that. They signed off on that. They said, yeah, they not want the death penalty. They even said to because it was it's only the Attorney General wanted this death penalty to go ahead.
He fights tooth and nail for anyone. That's I mean Christopher Dunn who got exonerated. You know here they judge literally brought the hammer down and said release that man immediately. And then then the Attorney General rings the prison and says, do not let him out.
Why why is he so steadfast on putting people to death?
I mean, honestly, you know, I've looked at this. He's done it time and time and time and time and time again. Every single person who the prosecutor's office have come forward and said that, you know, this is a wrongful conviction. He is there to fight it. He's in fact in court. His team is fighting the prosecutor's office.
Which is wild because, like we should point out again, the prosecution are the people that put you in prison. And it's the prosecution coming out and saying, uh, oh, we made a mistake like that's wild.
Isn't it. It's crazy. That's what blows. And I say this all the time, like I do not understand it when when your office, who is in charge of putting people behind bars, is coming out and saying this is wrong, you're still fighting it and you're going no, and they're in court. Literally, you've got the Attorney General's office in court saying that person is guilty. You've got the prosecutor standing there going that man is innocent.
On the opposite side.
Yes, it's not even the defenses team. You know they're in there as well fighting. But it just blows my mind. You know, if anyone wants to see it, Like Christopher Unne is a perfect case to look at. There's another case was Missouri and you just look at the prosecutors up there fighting back and forth with the attorney generals. They're supposed to be on the same side. They are on the same side. They put bad people in prison.
So in Marcellus's case, we've got the prosecution saying he shouldn't be put to death. We've got the victim's family saying that as well. And I believe the jewelry.
Yeah, yeah, everybody except the Attorney general.
For many years too, no one wanted the penalty because it looks like, as far as I can see, this kind of wheels in motion with the Board of Inquiry, and everything kind of happened after the second stay of execution, so after twenty seventeen, So this has been a fight. They've been fighting for many years.
Yeah.
But the other thing is that one of the governors put together's board of inquiry, but no results were ever released for it.
Why was that?
No one knows, No one knows, no results. They put together this whole team that's supposed to look into this case, and all of a sudden they just went, nah, I just closed the case, and just like, no results were ever released. Nothing, just nothing.
But they did have an evidentiary hearing quite recently and a lot of that damning kind of evidence that you mentioned about the knife and the mishandling and the jury, about the black African American jurors being discarded from the jury, all of that kind of stuff was revisited, right.
Yeah, I mean, but again, the judge didn't see an issue with the jury situation. You know, someone got up and explained reasoning behind I can't remember that. There was some bizarre reason behind post offices or something. It was very odd. I didn't really understand it. But essentially the judge was fine with that, and that was struck off.
What about the knife?
The knife again, But that's the thing. It's like, hold on, you guys have messed up. Okay, So whether his DNA is on that knife or not, we won't. We will never know because you messed up. That's on you, okay. So and the other thing is like, no one's saying let this man leave and skip off into the sunset. We're just saying, hey, let's just not kill him, just in case, because if five, ten, fifteen, twenty years down the track, it comes some more evidence comes out to
show oh, actually no, he's innocent. If he's dead, well, I guarantee if some official will come out and go, yeah, we really regret that, and we do apologize, and that would be it and we'll move on with our lives, you know. But if he was still alive, we can write. You know, he's been in president obviously for that many years, so that's terrible, but at least he can finally get out. But obviously we're in this situation now where that's not possible.
And this is my biggest frustration. I don't understand. The law in America is very confusing.
And in this instance, we're talking about an attorney general that basically was like, no death penalty stands. But what about the Supreme Court? What about the people higher up? Couldn't they intervene?
Well they can, but they didn't. It's it's like the governor again, he could have intervened, he could have stopped the whole thing, but he chose not to. There was over a million signatures for people not wanting this to happen. I mean, Marcellus Williams had more support than I've seen since I've been doing this. I mean, I've been doing this that long, but I mean, he had an amazing, insane amount of support from around the world and millions
of signatures. There was even news footage of people lined up outside the office of you know, the governor with signatures, like piles and piles of signatures, bringing them in, bringing them in, bringing them in. But you know, the biggest issue I think with this situation is that these people in power, like you return General Andrew Bailey, who loves a death penalty and putting people in prison, like the judges, like you know, your governor's prosecutors, we'll not prosecuting in
this case. He's brilliant. But most prosecutors, they are elected positions, so they're elected by the people, which is bizarre. It is bizarre because they're politicians. They're not. And at the end of the day, as I always say, you know, their biggest catch cry is tough on crime, because we all want our streets to be safe. You know, we all want to be able to walk down the street at night and not have to worry about, you know,
being murdered. So when someone comes out and says, you know, oh, we've put away x amount of bad people, look how good we are, the public go, oh yeah, fantastic. And there's been research done around election time and the rates of incarceration go up, you know, incarceration rates and lengths of sentences go up. Judges are far harsher on their sentencing because again they're elected officials and come election time, they want to yell, look at me, look at my numbers.
Look how many bad people I'm putting way in prison. I think it went really wrong for Marcellus when it came to wanting, you know, someone like the governor to get involved. Was I think there was too much support for him, and that sounds weird, But what I mean by that is that it got to a point where I think the governor, one it didn't want to be, did want to show that he might bend to public pressure and that he was staunch and that he's like, no, I'm gonna you know this. I believe this man is
guilty and we will continue on. But I go back to the fact the family did not want this. So this is supposed to be.
For the victims, justice for the victims.
Justice for victims. But if the victims don't want this, then what are we doing it for. They actually, I think they wrote a letter to police saying, please do not kill this man in our name. We don't want that but they did it anyway, and in the statement, the governor said, I hope this, you know, can can put the line under the sand and now the victims family can move on.
So I don't usually get this riled up on an episode of trick Time Conversations.
But mate, this is my life. It's so frustrating.
Like you say, we're not saying free the guy. But it's so hard to look at this case when you're like, there's supposed to be no reasonable doubt, and it is very obvious to me and to you in this case there is reasonable doubt.
There just is, absolutely there is. And that's the thing I like, you know, I found myself stupidly and I shouldn't but arguing with people online because I'm just like going because everyone's like, ah, you know, it's like he made his beddy lie. You know, it's like, but hold on a second. Again, we're not saying let him skip off into the sunset and have a wonderful life. We're saying, hey, let's just not kill him. This is why I don't
understand why. You know, as we said, there is reasonable doubt, whether you believe you know, whether you say, oh that would never happen. But it could have, and that is what we call reasonable doubt. It could have happened. You know, it's not so far fetched that that laptop could have been given to Marcellus's former partner as a form of payment for the work she was doing, because we know for a fact she was living in car. We know for a fact she was working out of his car.
We know for a fact because the guy who took the laptop from Marcellus said, you know, and you could say, well, he could be wrong, or you know, Marcellus could have been lying yes, but he may not have been as well. She gave him that laptop and said, exchange it for drugs. I don't know. It just blows my mind that they're so willing to just draw a line under the sand and make it that final when there is still reasonable doubt.
Something else that isn't in Marcellus's corner. I've read kind of two sides of the coin when it comes to the kind of prisoner he was over his many years in prison. On the one hand, you hear all of this information about him, you know, leading prayer and converting to Islam and being this softly spoken man. But on the other hand, he's also been disciplined over a hundred times while in prison, verbal and physical ultra ration with inmates and guards, and so I can see how the
public would get an idea in their head. But once again, that doesn't make him a murderer.
No, necessarily, absolutely not. So there's a lot of people I speak to who you know, prison is a dangerous place to be, you know. Again, going back to Everiso Salis Junior, I mean he joined a prison gang. He joined a Hispanic prison gang when he went to prison. He definitely didn't kill anyone. He's been exonerated, but he did what he had to do to survive in those places.
You know, they are not nice places to live. You know, as I said that at the very start of this, some of the people I speak to can very rarely get a phone because it's controlled by gangs. And if you don't fight, you become a victim because they are just ruthless places to be. So the fact that Marcellus had this, I mean against officers, that's not of course,
that's not. But then again, the officers in this places sometimes aren't very nice human beings z either, you know, So you know, when you hear this person had infractions in prison for fighting and that sort of stuff. To me, it's like, you do what you've got to do in
those places, you know. I've spoken so many people who were just normal people when they went into prison, and then they went into prison, and they completely changed because the environment that they're placed into, and you can very quickly become a target for extortion, you know, sexual abuse, all those sorts of things. You know. I speaking to a guy at the moment who has been in prison since nineteen eighty five, and we've spoken about, you know that,
how do you stay out of trouble? He said, We've got to stand up for yourself. You've got to show that you will not be pushed around otherwise it ain't a nice time for you.
How does the process of execution go in that state. We've talked about the fact that he had a freedom of a phone. What else was he given in the months and days and what do those final days and hours look like.
I've actually recently had a man explain this to me. It was quite sobering. Again, he's been in prison since ninety eighty five. He was originally on death row. In fact, he was on the death row with Ted Bundy. Oh wow, and saw Ted Bundy being taken to the chair. It was an electric chair back in those days, but now it's slightly more humane. But once you've given you a date, you are moved from In Missouri, actually if you're on death row, you're not on what they call the row.
You're actually in general population, which is unusual generally for people who are put on death row. They are placed on what they called the row, and they have less time outside of their cells, and any movement they make is completely shackled, you know, two guards, arms, feet, everything shackled wherever you go and all the rest of it. So in the once you've given your date, you are then moved to this other section of the prison where
everything you need is in your cell. You have a shower, toilet, you know, you've got TV, bed, everything basically is done within the cell because essentially they want to keep an eye on you. And this gentleman Tommy, actually in the sort of last week I think is the last full week before you're executed, you in fact have someone a guard sit outside yourself, so you have literally no privacy whatsoever. You're in a cell that's fully just bars, snow doors
or anything like that. And the reason for the guard sitting there is to make sure that you don't kill yourself. How ridiculous is that. They don't want you to kill yourself.
They want to do it.
They want to make sure they're doing it, So they sit and watch you for a week, and then what they call a white hat comes to get you, or what this gentleman to I mean this he's talking about Florida, but you know, so Missouri might be slightly different. But he taught me through the process of Florida. He said, a white hat comes to get you, which is a captain. He said that they attach you to what they affectually
call a dog pole. It's apparently a long pole, and they've got a couple of them, because obviously they're walking you to your death. So you may decide that, well, I've got nothing left to lose, I may as well see, you know how many officers I can take out on the way. And he said, with these poles, they've they're set up so that if you do try and resist, they basically twist them and it sort of cuts through
your wrists and stuff. So it's very brutal and you're led to the chamber, and in Missouri, I've seen a photo of the room that they're in. It's very clinical, very stale sort of looking room with a bed with straps on it, and you're placed obviously onto the bed
you're strapped in. There's a phone on the wall, and that phone is for the I think it's for It's either for the attorney general or for the governor, but essentially that's the phone call that either says yep, all good or no, where we're taking back sort of thing. Phone rings yep, go ahead with it, and you're asked any final words, and in the state of Missouri has
said that it's an injection, two injections. I believe Marcellus would have had a white sheet pulled over him up to his neck so and his face is showing and yeah, that's it, basically says his last words. And you have the gallery obviously watching on his son, watching on his son said he was always going to be there with him.
You kind of joined the fight to try and get him off death row. Towards the end there you were kind of calling out to your listeners as well. How did you feel when that death date did actually come.
It was very weird. Like, as I said, I haven't I didn't build the sort of relationship with him that I have with a number of other people I've spoken to. You know, some people I've speaking with for nearly three years. We speak quite regularly, so I've got quite a strong relationship with a number of people are incarcerated. But for him, it was a much shorter period of time, and I did feel strongly about not wanting him to be killed.
So I was rallying people to try and sign the petitions and stuff like that, and then I was sitting watching there as a visual happening outside the present where it was being taken place, and I was watching that, and everyone's sort of obviously hoping for that last stay. You sit there waiting and waiting and waiting, and then eventually someone says, you know, oh, the witnesses are now coming out, which means it's happened. And then the statement
gets put out that it's you know, it happened. It's very weird, very weird. Especially I put together a little little thing, a little package from him and I his interview, and that was weird listening to the conversation knowing that he was no longer around, and he passed just literally an hour prior. And you know, this is a little bit at the end of our chat, is you know, he said, I said, then, I thanks so much. Indeed, was really lovely to chat with you, and we'll speak soon.
And he just said, God willing, lovely to talk to you too. Nice meeting you, meeting you, of meeting you too, sir, and I will talk to you very soon.
All right, we'll take her bye bye.
And yeah, it was just weird, you know. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say I was balling my eyes out because I didn't know the man, you know, but I did feel I felt a little
bit guilty. I suppose in a way, you know, I feel guilty about talking to it, you know, with a lot of the stories I talk about, because I feel like I don't want to you know, I'm talking to these people and I always say to them, look, I don't want to give you any false hope that being on here is going to do anything to help the situation, you know. So I suppose there was a little bit of guilt that nothing I did really helped him at all. So, yeah, it's a weird one very weird Did he.
Tell you how he felt about death?
Well, his religion basically was because I said to him, I said, you know, obviously we've talked about his stays and how he had multiple stays, and I said, that's got to really mess with him mentally. You know, you've had multiple stays of execution, and now you've got this other one coming up. And you know, we all know that we're going to die, but the other thing is we don't know when whereas this is. You know, you've got this date, this is when you're going to die,
at the time you're going to die. So that must really strung you. Must you know mentally, it must be hard. And he's like, well, yeah, like as I'm you know, I'm normal like everybody else. I have anxieties and things like that, but I've put my faith in in my faith, and you know, if this is what's to happen, then this is what's to happen. So you know, and you'll find there's a lot you know, there's there's a big sort of running joke about people who become religious in prison.
You know, everyone sort of laughs or so says, oh, yeah, we go another one who's converted. But when you're at your darkest moment, you know you need something, You need some especially for people who have been wrongfully convicted. You need there needs to be really you need to feel like there's a reason why.
There's obviously been a lot of outrage. This has been getting a lot of media headlines, probably not as many as you would expect down under.
Yeah, well, I mean you've got one article in news dot com. I think once once he'd been killed, but even in the own country. But that's how fickle our news cycle is, though, isn't it. Because I mean it was huge for a couple of days, and then we move on something else, is you know, Donald Trump said something stupid or you know, and we move on. Someone actually asked me that day I did it, was doing a Q and A on my show, and they said, do you know if anyone's going after the state or
anyone for going ahead with the execution? And I said, I thought about this myself. I wonder if people are still going to try and prove his innocence. You know, obviously he's got family and I'm sure they would love to keep doing that, but you can't do that without legal help. And you just wonder whether or not the Innocence Project They've got so many, so much work on, they probably like can't do.
Much now, still trying to save people.
And you wonder if anyone ever will try and fully clear his name.
Why why are these cases not getting more attention or more prolonged attention.
People don't care. But if I think about it, before I got into what I do now, I didn't give people in prison a second thought. You know, I didn't think about people in prison. I was of the opinion, if you're in prison, you did something wrong, you deserve to be there. It's only now that I'm engrossed in
it all the time and I'm seeing these things. You know, one hundred and thirty five people already this year have been exonerated, you know, of twenty years, thirty years, you know, Christopher Dunn, thirty five, I think, thirty three, thirty four years, something like that. You know, there's been it's just but it just gets no attention, or it might be in the news that night, and then they move on. And these people aren't even eligible for compensation most of the
time either, And that blows my mind. You know, they have to fight for that.
But then there's stories like the Menendez brothers, and they've been in the headlines for months now.
Netflix effect in it M true. Yeah, if you get a documentary made, you're probably going to get more attention.
So do you think this will have any effect on Missouri that they'll change, They'll want to change, they will be affected by all the bad press.
No, I mean the governor. If you look at the governor's Instagram or Facebook page after this happened. I mean, I don't know why he didn't turn comments off because it was just insane. So I don't know whether or not he might get re elected or who knows, he may not get relected the next time round. You know that. Andrew Bailey, the Attorney General, I mean, he's still going about his business, you know, speaking of Christopher Dune. I spoke to Christopher yesterday, who's now out of prison. But
I said to him, and how things going goes? Oh, well, the attorney general's appealing to get me put back in prison and he's been exonerated. It's like, dude, you know, move on. So No, I don't think it will change anything at all, you know, you know, I always say to my American audience, that I've never I don't mean to attack your country because no one's got it right, you know, everyone's got it. You know. I think we've
all got terrible legal systems. But I think when it's so ingrained in a society, like their gun situation, that's never going to change. No, they're too far gone, you know. And America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, in the world, like two million people in cart Rut.
But the Australian justice system, we should give it props in comparison here because one, we don't have the death penalty, which I mean I don't believe in. I can see that you don't believe in the death penalty. But two, we don't elect our attorney generals. They get there on merit. So I mean there's two positives in our corner. We hopefully don't see as many cases of people wrongfully convicted.
I would hope Norway. In those countries they've got phenomenal you know. You know, they're closing prisons. You know, you want to look a country that's doing it right. They're closing prisons because their recidivism rate is dropping dramatically. But then again, we don't have it I think we're of the other way. I think we're too soft in some respects, you know, because people always say to me, all you say,
what do you want? There's no prisons and lardy dark no, no, no. I think there's a lot of people that should be in prison. In fact, a lot of them live around my area. But you know, I don't think anyway has got it right. I just think, you know, America is just insane. They hand out years like it's days. As one of my prisoners I spoke to once said to me, as they hand out years like it's days, you know, the guy is going to be talking to you very soon. It's got twelve hundred years sentenced.
Twelve hundred years.
Yeah, that's crazy. You know, I've got another guy who's got life plus one hundred and three just in case, you know, reincarnation and all that sort of stuff.
I guess it just really makes you question the justice system. And I know that we're in Australia, so you know, if we were to be convicted of a crime, it would be in Australia. But it really does make you question, in twenty twenty four, how things like this can still happen.
And That's what I say all the time, like, how is this still happening in twenty twenty four. But again, going back to the sheer volume of people who are incarcerated in America just means that the courts are just so overwhelmed that half the time they're not even reading the cases. They're just rubber stamping, you know, people putting through appeals, so they're just getting rubber stamped. I've got an attorney who joins me on the show every time we cover a case to give his opinion, so I'm
not being completely biased. And you know, he comes with a clear head and says, well, hold on a second, let's look at this. But even he says, you know, in some cases he just shakes his head and he just goes And I say, I don't understand, Michael. How is someone not higher up in power looking at this and going, oh, actually, there's some issues here. Because you're telling me there's issues here. You're telling me there's great arguments for this person to be released, he said, because
they're just not reading it. They get a top page, which is generally from the prosecutor why this person was convicted, and they go, oh, yeah, sounds plausible boom stamp denied, and away we go.
Thanks to Jack for helping us to tell this story. Our Crime Conversations is a Muma MEA podcast hosted and produced by me Jemma Bath and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design by Tom Lyon. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week with another true crime Conversation