On August 11, 1998, Felicia Gayle, a 42-year-old reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was brutally murdered in her University City, Missouri home. The perpetrator broke into her home when she was showering and stabbed her 43 times with a butcher's knife taken from her kitchen. Marcellus Williams was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. After years of appeals by various leftist NGOs, he was finally executed this week.

Leftist NGOs and their allies in the media are pretending that there is reason to believe Williams may have been innocent, or was innocent. This is not true, and anyone studying the case cannot reasonably conclude otherwise. Since The New York Times and even Wikipedia are peddling such conspiracy theories, we thought we would go over the evidence, which is of course all freely available.

The Evidence For Williams' Guilt

The evidence is overwhelming and compelling.

Two separate individuals reported that Williams confessed to the murder. His girlfriend, L.A., stated that Williams admitted to killing a woman, providing chilling details about stabbing the victim in the arm and neck. The girlfriend provided crucial testimony about Williams' appearance and actions following the crime. She recalled him wearing a jacket on a hot summer day. When he removed it, she observed that his shirt was bloody and he had scratches on his neck. Williams claimed he had been in a fight. L.A. also witnessed Williams disposing of bloody clothes in a sewer drain in the days after the murder.

Later, while Williams was incarcerated, his cellmate H.C. came forward with a similar account. H.C. told police that Williams had described the murder in detail, including information that had not been made public at the time.

There is also physical evidence. Several items belonging to the victim were found in Williams' possession: the victim's purse, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator from the purse, and a laptop computer belonging to the victim's husband. Notably, investigators discovered that Williams had sold the stolen laptop to an individual identified as G.R. shortly after the murder occurred.

Finally, there is evidence of premeditation, as witnesses testified that Williams had been looking for a house to burglarize in the area on the day of the murder.

The "Innocence" Case

The innocence case rests on two pillars: first, DNA not belonging to Williams was found on the murder weapon; second, strands of hair not belonging to Williams were found on the crime scene.

Neither of these pillars can bear much weight.

Everyone's brains shut down when they hear "DNA evidence," but in this case it has been proven that the DNA in question belonged to investigators who handled the knife after the crime, in an era before it was known that DNA could be transmitted through mere touch. Meanwhile, a trial witness testified that Williams wore gloves, explaining why his DNA wasn't on the murder weapon.

The other pillar is even more flimsy: of course, in a normal person's homes, one can find dozens of strands of hair belonging from all sorts of people who came into the house over the years. This is hardly sufficient to exculpate someone of a crime, especially when the evidence against them is so strong.

The Shame of the Leftist Enablers

The New York Times article on the case is simply disinformation. It neglects to mention numerous pieces of evidence, such as Williams' confessions to his girlfriend and cellmate, the girlfriend's observation of Williams' bloody shirt and scratches after the crime, his possession of numerous items belonging to the victim, his disposing of bloody clothes in a sewer drain. Most crucially, the Times neglects to mention testimony that the murderer of Felicia Gayle wore gloves, which explains why Williams' DNA was not found on the murder weapon.

It's hard for a normal person to process or understand why ostensibly reasonable people—lawyers working for NGOs, reporters working for the alleged "newspaper of record"—would not only lie, but lie in the service of something so grim: coming to the aid of someone who is clearly guilty of a disgusting, gruesome crime.

But that's what is happening here. And it helps explain why smart people no longer trust corporate media, and why we are glad outlets like PolicySphere exist.