South Carolina has carried out its first execution in 13 years, administering a lethal injection to death row inmate Freddie Owens on Friday evening. Owens, 46, was convicted of the 1997 murder of Irene Graves, a convenience store worker, during an armed robbery in Greenville.
Despite a last-minute appeal from his co-defendant, Steve Golden, who claimed Owens was not present at the time of the crime, the South Carolina Supreme Court declined to halt the execution. The court found Golden’s new statement inconsistent with his testimony at Owens’ 1999 trial, where he had testified against Owens.
Owens was executed at the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, South Carolina, and pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m. local time (10:55 p.m. GMT) after being injected with pentobarbital. Owens did not make a final statement before his death.
His execution follows a years-long pause in the state’s use of the death penalty due to difficulties procuring the necessary drugs for lethal injections. Owens, sentenced to death in 1999, was convicted of the murder of Graves, along with charges of armed robbery and criminal conspiracy.
According to trial testimony, Owens, then 19, and Golden, then 18, attempted to rob the convenience store where Graves worked. When Graves, a 41-year-old single mother of three, failed to open a safe, Owens shot and killed her. Prosecutors presented multiple witnesses who testified that Owens had admitted to the killing.
In a final effort to stop the execution, Owens’ lawyers pointed to Golden’s new affidavit, signed just days before the execution, in which he claimed Owens was innocent. However, the court dismissed the affidavit, noting it contradicted both Golden’s testimony at trial and his statements to police after the arrest.
Advocates against the death penalty, along with Owens’ mother, Dora Mason, also made appeals for clemency, which were denied by Governor Henry McMaster. Hours before the execution, Mason expressed her sorrow, calling it a “grave injustice” against her son, who had maintained his innocence from the beginning.
In South Carolina, inmates can choose their method of execution from lethal injection, the electric chair, or a firing squad. Owens deferred this decision to his attorney, who selected lethal injection.
Journalists present at the execution reported that members of Irene Graves’ family were also in attendance.
