States set to execute five death row inmates this week in highest spree in decades as Missouri refuses to halt sentence of man convicted of 1998 killing after last-minute bid

Five states are scheduled to execute death row inmates to death within a week in the highest spree in decades.

The executions in Alabama , Missouri , Oklahoma , South Carolina and Texas will mark the first time in more than 20 years - since July 2003 - that five were held in seven days, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

The first execution was carried out on Friday in South Carolina, and if the other four scheduled this week proceed, the United States will have reached 1,600 executions since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, said Robin Maher, the center's executive director.

'Two on a single day is unusual, and four on two days in the same week is also very unusual,' Maher said.

In Missouri, prisoner Marcellus Williams is set to receive a lethal injection at 6pm on Tuesday for the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former newspaper reporter, during a burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.

Williams' attorneys argued on Monday that the state Supreme Court should halt his execution over alleged procedural errors in jury selection and the prosecution's alleged mishandling of the murder weapon.

But the state's high court rejected those arguments, and Gov. Mike Parson denied Williams' clemency request, paving the way for his execution to proceed.

Williams, 55, has asserted his innocence and Tuesday marks the third time Williams has faced execution. He was less than a week away from execution in January 2015 when the state Supreme Court called it off, allowing time for his attorneys to pursue additional DNA testing.

He was just hours away from being executed in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay and appointed a panel of retired judges to examine the case. But that panel never reached a conclusion.

Williams' execution would be the third in Missouri this year and the 100th since the state resumed executions in 1989.

Prosecutors at Williams' original trial said he broke into Gayle's home on August 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower, and found a large butcher knife.

Gayle, a former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband's laptop computer were stolen.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. Williams' girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the purse and laptop in his car and that Williams sold the computer a day or two later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors Williams confessed to the killing and offered details about it.

Another prisoner set to be executed on Tuesday is Travis Mullis, a man with a long history of mental illness who has repeatedly sought to waive his right to appeal his death sentence.

Mullis was sentenced to death for killing his 3-month-old son in January 2008. Authorities say Mullis, then 21 and living in Brazoria County, drove to nearby Galveston with his son after fighting with his girlfriend.

Mullis parked his car and sexually assaulted his son. After the infant began to cry uncontrollably, Mullis began strangling his son before taking him out of the car and stomping on his head, according to authorities.

The infant's body was later found on the side of the road. Mullis fled Texas but was later arrested after turning himself in to police in Philadelphia.

Mullis' execution was expected to proceed as his attorneys did not plan to file any final appeals to try and stay his lethal injection. His lawyers also did not file a clemency petition with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

In a letter submitted to U.S. District Judge George Hanks in Houston, Mullis wrote in February that he had no desire to challenge his case any further. In the letter, Mullis said, 'he seeks the same finality and justice the state seeks.'

Mullis has previously taken responsibility for his son's death and has said 'his punishment fit the crime.'

Mullis would be the fourth inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation's busiest capital punishment state, and the 15th in the U.S.

On Thursday, another two death row inmates are set to be executed on the same day in different states.

Alabama is preparing to carry out the nation's second execution ever using nitrogen gas after becoming the first state to use the new procedure in January.

Alan Miller is set to die by the process in which a mask is placed over the inmate's head that forces the inmate to inhale pure nitrogen.

Miller, who was given a reprieve in 2022 after his execution was called off when officials were unable to connect an intravenous line, was sentenced to die after being convicted of killing three men during back-to-back workplace shootings in 1999.

In Oklahoma, Emmanuel Littlejohn is set to receive a lethal injection on Thursday after being sentenced to die for his role in the 1992 shooting death of a convenience store owner during a robbery.

Littlejohn has admitted to his role in the robbery, but claims he did not fire the fatal shot. The state's Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 last month to recommend Gov.

Kevin Stitt spare Littlejohn's life, but the governor has yet to make a clemency decision.

The first of the five executions to take place within a week already happened last Friday when South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death for the 1997 killing of a convenience store clerk during a robbery.

It was South Carolina's first execution in 13 years, an unintended delay caused by the inability of state prison officials to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections.

To carry out executions, the state switched from a three-drug method to a new protocol of using a single sedative, pentobarbital.

Experts say five executions being scheduled within one week is simply an anomaly that resulted from courts or elected officials in individual states setting dates around the same time after inmates exhausted their appeals.

'I'm not aware of any reason other than coincidence,' said Eric Berger, a law professor at the University of Nebraska with expertise in the death penalty and lethal injection.

Berger said some factors can result in a backlog of executions, such as a state's inability to obtain the lethal drugs necessary to carry them out, which happened in South Carolina, or a moratorium that resulted from botched executions, like what happened in Oklahoma.