MID-MISSOURI – Marcellus Williams was executed Tuesday at 6 p.m. in Bonne Terre.

Although Governor Mike Parson denied Williams a pardon for the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle in St. Louis County, protesters gathered across the state in central Missouri to call for Parson to spare his life.

Jim Kemnna, a volunteer at Jefferson City Correctional Center, attended a rally at the state capitol Tuesday organized by Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. The organization delivered more than a million petitions to Governor Parson’s office, urging him to spare Williams’ life.

“How do we teach that killing is wrong by killing? I volunteer at the Jefferson City Corrections Center, and the men I know there are human beings. Killing them for things they’ve done in the past, they don’t deserve that. We as a state are better than that,” Kemnna explained.

In Columbia, a protest took place on the lawn in front of the Bonne County Courthouse.

“If we had any idea that Felica Gayle was going to be murdered in 1998, we would have acted quickly to prevent it. This is a situation where it’s even more of a premeditated murder,” explained Jeff Stack, one of the protesters at Columbia.