The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed Missouri to proceed with its plan to execute death row inmate Marcellus Williams, rejecting a last-ditch request to intervene on his behalf.

Williams was executed despite pleas for clemency from prosecutors and family members of murder victim Felicia Gayle.

A judge accepted a plea of no contest last month which would have spared Marcellus Williams’ life, but that deal was scuttled by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office.

Marcellus Williams had always maintained that he had nothing to do with the stabbing death of a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. State and federal courts rejected numerous last-minute requests to halt the execution and review the case.

Marcellus Williams is set to die by lethal injection in the 1998 fatal stabbing of former reporter Lisha Gayle inside her St. Louis-area home.

Missouri is set to execute 55-year-old death row inmate Marcellus Williams on Tuesday evening — despite pleas from prosecutors and even his victim’s family. Missouri’s governor, Mike Parson, and its supreme court said Monday that sufficient evidence exists for the state to take Williams’ life for the 1998 stabbing murder of Felicia Gayle,

Lawyers for a Missouri man have filed a late appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court alleging there were racial bias and constitutional errors at his trial

Former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle was 42 when she was killed. Now with her killer set for execution, her family hopes for finality.