Execution set for man convicted of killing former St. Louis newspaper reporter
The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday set an August execution date for a man convicted in the 1998 killing of a former St. Louis newspaper reporter.
Marcellus Williams was found guilty of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Lisha Gayle inside her suburban St. Louis home.
Williams broke into Gayle’s home and attacked her when she stepped out of the shower, according to trial testimony. She was stabbed multiple times.
Gayle, 42, was a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from 1981 to 1992 and left the paper to do volunteer social work.
Williams, now 48, was previously scheduled to be put to death in 2015, but the state Supreme Court stayed the execution.
On Wednesday, the court set a new execution date for Aug. 22.
It would be Missouri’s second execution of 2017. Mark Christeson was put to death in January for killing a woman and her two children in 1998.
Tony Rizzo: 816-234-4435, @trizzkc
This story was originally published April 26, 2017 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Execution set for man convicted of killing former St. Louis newspaper reporter."