The Missouri Supreme Court, the governor rejected calls to halt the execution of a man convicted of murder in 1998.

The Missouri Supreme Court and the state’s GOP Gov. Mike Parson each rejected Monday’s appeals by an inmate trying to avoid his scheduled execution.

Marcellus Williams, 55, will be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday at 6 pm in connection with the murder of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former newspaper reporter who was stabbed more than 40 times during a burglary at her home in St. Louis. in 1998, according to the Associated Press. Williams has maintained her innocence.

Parson rejected Williams’ plea for leniency to spare his life and instead sentenced him to life in prison. The state Supreme Court also rejected a request for a stay of execution to allow a lower court to make a new ruling on whether the trial prosecutor wrongly excluded a potential juror because of racial bias.

His attorney argued before the state Supreme Court about procedural errors in jury selection and the prosecutor’s alleged mishandling of a deadly weapon. The court, in a unanimous decision, affirmed the lower court’s decision dismissing Williams’ claims.

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“Despite nearly a century of litigation in both state and federal courts, there is no substantial evidence of innocence or showing of constitutional error that undermines the credibility of the original decision,” Judge Zel Fischer wrote in the federal decision.

Williams’ lawyers have also filed an appeal to the US Supreme Court, which is pending.

Parson said Williams’ attorneys are getting many opportunities to try to prosecute their client because he is innocent. The governor also said that Williams’ lawyers were trying to “muddy the waters with genetic evidence” with allegations that have been dismissed by the courts.

“Nothing in the actual facts of this case leads me to believe that Mr. Williams is innocent,” Parson said in a statement. “As a result, Mr. Williams’ punishment will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court.”

The governor has never granted leniency in a death penalty case.

The prosecutor of St. Louis County Attorney Wesley Bell is looking to overturn Williams’ sentence, pointing to questions about whether he is guilty. Bell plans to appeal the Missouri Supreme Court decision to the US Supreme Court, his spokesman told The Associated Press.

“Even for those who do not support the death penalty, if there is any doubt about any defendant’s guilt, the irreversible death penalty should not be an option,” Bell said in a statement.

Midwest Innocence Project attorney Tricia Bushnell said “Missouri is ready to kill an innocent man, an outcome that calls into question the validity of the entire criminal justice system.”

During Williams’ trial, prosecutors said he broke into Gayle’s home on August 11, 1998, heard the water running in the shower, found a large butcher’s knife and stabbed him 43 times as he got down. Gayle’s purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen from the home.

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Joseph Amrine, who was sentenced two decades ago after spending years on death row, speaks at a rally in support of Missouri death row inmate Marcellus Williams on Aug. 21, 2024, Clayton, Missouri. (AP)

Williams was accused of stealing the jacket to hide the blood on his shirt. Williams’ girlfriend asked him why he was wearing a jacket when it was hot, and later said she saw a wallet and laptop in his car. Williams sold the computer a day or two later, his girlfriend said.

Prosecutors also pointed to the testimony of Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was incarcerated on unrelated charges. Cole said Williams confessed to the murder and gave details about it.

Williams’ execution would be Missouri’s third so far this year and the 100th since the state resumed executions in 1989.

It will be the third time Williams has come close to being killed.

In January 2015, he was less than a week away from his execution when the state Supreme Court canceled it to give his lawyers time to pursue additional DNA testing.

Williams was hours away from being executed in August 2017 when then-Republican Governor Eric Greitens granted a stay and appointed a panel of retired judges to review the case. The panel, however, did not reach a conclusion in the case.

Concerns about the DNA evidence led Bell to request a trial challenging whether Williams was guilty. But days before the August 21 trial, new tests revealed that the DNA on the mask belonged to people in the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves following the original test.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson delivered his State of the State address on Jan. 18, 2023, in Jefferson City, Missouri. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

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Without DNA evidence implicating any other suspect, attorneys for the Midwest Innocence Project reached an agreement with the prosecutor’s office in which Williams will enter a new plea, no contest to the death penalty, to reduce his sentence to life in prison without parole.

Judge Bruce Hilton and Gayle’s family signed the agreement but, at the request of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, the state Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with the evidentiary hearing, which was held on August 28.

The prosecutor in the 2001 murder case argued at trial that the jury was fair, even though it included one black juror. The prosecutor said he removed a potential juror who was black in part because he looked like Williams, which Williams’ lawyers said was racist.

Earlier this month, Hilton ruled that the manslaughter conviction and death penalty would go ahead, insisting that Williams’ arguments had previously been dismissed, a decision upheld by the state Supreme Court on Monday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.