Marcellus Williams was executed on September 24, 2024 for the brutal murder of journalist Felicia Gayle in her own home in 1998.
While burglarizing her home in St. Louis, Missouri, Williams stabbed Gayle 43 times with a knife he obtained from her kitchen. Items stolen from Gayle’s home, including a laptop belonging to her husband, were found in Williams’ possession. Williams’ girlfriend reported to police that Williams was covered in blood when he picked her up on the day of Gayle’s murder. Williams admitted to his girlfriend that he murdered Gayle when confronted with Gayle’s purse, which she had found in his car. Williams threatened to kill her and her family if she reported it, which delayed her going to the police. While incarcerated for yet another crime, Williams provided to a cellmate nonpublic information about the murder that only someone involved in the crime would know. This informant’s reported this information to the police.
I am not here to relitigate the case. I have reviewed both sides of the case and determined that Williams was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Claims such as the one made below by Ibram X. Kendi, that DNA evidence proves his innocence, are not merely false but misunderstand basic legal concepts. It isn’t worth the time to debunk all the false claims. My purpose here is threefold: criticize the race hustlers, note the purpose of identity politics, and condemn the death penalty.
First, I have written about lynching in the pages of academic journals and here on Freedom and Reason and I can assure readers that, even if there were legitimate doubts in this case, Williams was not lynched. Lynching is something else entirely (see Agency and Motive in Lynching and Genocide). The NAACP is further tarnishing their image by framing the execution in this false way.
Second, the furor over Williams’ execution is an attempt in an election year to manufacture a George Floyd-type outrage to help the Democrats. Trump is doing better than past Republicans among black voters, so the project to portray all whites as racist has slipped into a higher gear. This likely won’t be the last attempt at inflaming racial tensions. The heinous nature of Williams’ crime worked against the effort to portray him in a sympathetic light, but there may be other cases with wider play.
Finally, I know many of my friends and family disagree with me about this, but the political hijacking of this case by progressives is distracting from the real injustice, namely the fact that the United States still kills some of it prisoners. To be sure, Missouri didn’t lynch a man. They lawfully executed a guilty man for a heinous crime. The world is safer without Williams in it. But Missouri should not kill its prisoners. No state should. America should abolish the death penalty.
freedom and reason 