Many of the contributors to this thread are under the wrong impression that the police found the victim's laptop and other items in Marcellus Williams' car. This is not true. According to Wikipedia, the murder occurred in August 1998, but it was not until May 1999 that the victim's family "announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case. In response, two individuals, Henry Cole and Lara Asaro, named Marcellus Scott Williams as the culprit."
The wikipedia article continues: "Lara Asaro, the girlfriend of Williams at the time of the crime, gave testimony that Williams had confessed to her... This is after she discovered evidence from the crime scene in Williams' car."
This is an important clarification: The police did not find the victim's property in Williams' car. Rather, Williams' ex-girlfriend, who was incentivized by reward money, claimed, more than 8 months after the crime, that she saw the victim's property in his car.
This is one of the the main reasons that the Innocence Project correctly argues that there is no reliable evidence linking Marcellus Williams to the murder.
"The next day, the police searched the Buick LeSabre and found the Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator belonging to Gayle. The police also recovered the laptop computer from Glenn Roberts. The laptop was identified as the one stolen from Gayle's residence."
https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/2003/sc-...
The only thing linking the laptop to Williams was the testimony of a witness. Even if the witness is telling the truth, he has no way of knowing how Williams obtained the laptop.
By any reasonable standard, all this is extremely flimsy evidence: More than a year after the murder, the police found a "Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator" in the suspect's car that belonged to the victim? And someone testified that Williams had the victim's laptop. And it is on the basis of this pitifully weak evidence that you would justify the execution of Williams, the suspect? Even though, as the Innocence Project correctly observes, there is no direct physical evidence linking Williams to the crime scene, and the DNA recovered from the crime scene does not match Williams?
https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/2003/sc-...
Since I wasn't on the jury, I can't say whether or not I would have been ok with the death penalty in this case, although the murder was particularly heinous.