South Carolina death row inmate dies by state’s first lethal injection in 13 years

By Ashley R. Williams, CNN

(CNN) — South Carolina death row inmate Freddie Owens died by lethal injection on Friday during the state’s first execution in 13 years.

Owens, 46, was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing a convenience store clerk Irene Graves during a robbery in Greenville, South Carolina, when he was 19 years old.

Owens was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m. ET, state officials said at a news conference Friday evening. He made no final statement.

South Carolina’s Supreme Court declined on Thursday to halt his execution and Gov. Henry McMaster chose not to grant Owens the requested clemency.

Owen’s attorneys filed for a stay of execution with the Supreme Court of the United States on Friday, hours before his execution, court documents show, but the court denied the request.

The inmate requested an emergency injunction in part because the violation of due process his attorneys said occurred when South Carolina’s Department of Corrections and Gov. McMaster did not provide Owens with basic information about the lethal injection drugs and the execution team’s qualifications, according to the emergency motion.

The state-mandated death marks the state’s first by lethal injection since it regained access to the medication required to perform the procedure following nearly a decade of lethal injection supply issues.

Graves, a 41-year-old mother of three children, was working an overnight shift at a store in Greenville on November 1, 1997, when she was shot and killed during a robbery, CNN affiliate WHNS reported.

Owens was sentenced to death two years later after being convicted of murder, armed robbery and criminal conspiracy, the corrections department said.

Owens also confessed to killing a cellmate in 1999 while awaiting sentencing following his conviction, WHNS reported.

His execution began at 6:35 p.m. ET, officials said. Two family members of Graves who were present appeared to look intently at Owens, who was dressed in a green jumpsuit and covered with a white sheet, according to an Associated Press reporter who witnessed the lethal injection.

“Didn’t look away from him until well into the process,” AP reporter Jeffrey Collins said Friday at the news conference.

“There wasn’t like any animosity, or any, you know, anger or anything, they just kind of gave him a fairly intense stare.”

Owens was put to death using a single drug called pentobarbital, described by the South Carolina Law Review as a sedative commonly used in pet euthanization.

The state secured use of the drug after McMaster passed a shield statute in 2023 that protects the “identities of individuals or entities involved in the planning or execution of a death sentence,” according to the governor’s office.

On Thursday evening, for the second time this month, the South Carolina Supreme Court refused to halt Owens’ execution despite a new affidavit signed Wednesday by his co-defendant, Steven Golden, who now claims Owens was not present at the time of the robbery and killing, court documents show.

Owens filed separate motions on August 30 and September 5 asking the court to halt the Friday execution. The court said it denied both motions on September 12 and saw no reason on Thursday to reconsider their decision.

Golden’s affidavit also claimed that he himself was not the gunman but “swears he knows the person’s identity,” according to a court order.

“This new affidavit is squarely inconsistent with Golden’s testimony at Owens’ 1999 trial, at the first resentencing trial in 2003, and in the statement he gave law enforcement officers immediately after he participated in committing the crimes in 1997,” the order reads.

The court also noted Owens previously confessed to five people, including two law enforcement officers and his girlfriend.

The South Carolina Supreme Court issued an execution order for Owens to the state’s corrections department on August 23.

Owens was asked to choose between lethal injection, the electric chair and firing squad two weeks ago, according to the corrections department, but instead granted his attorney, Emily Paavola, the power to make the decision, court documents show.

Paavola chose the lethal injection option for her client, according to the documents.

One of Owens’ attorneys referred to his death as “a tragedy” in a statement to CNN on Friday night and said he was not responsible for Graves’ killing.

“Freddie Owens did not kill Ms. Graves. (His) childhood was marked by suffering on a scale that is hard to comprehend,” attorney Gerald “Bo” King said in a statement.

“He spent his adulthood in prison for a crime that he did not commit. The legal errors, hidden deals, and false evidence that made tonight possible should shame us all,” King said.

Execution rescheduled from 2021

Owens’ execution had been scheduled for June 25, 2021, but the process was halted that month after the state supreme court blocked the executions of Owens and another death row inmate, Brad Sigmon, CNN previously reported.

The court ordered a pause on their executions while procedures for the state’s newest method of capital punishment at the time – death by firing squad – were finalized.

A South Carolina law went into effect in May 2021 allowing inmates to choose between execution by the electric chair or by a firing squad if lethal injection drugs weren’t available, according to the South Carolina Legislature.

Amid the state’s lethal injection medication supply issues at the time and with the firing squad method not yet established, death by electrocution was the only method of execution, the AP reported. Owens’ and Sigmon’s attorneys argued that the state’s 109-year-old electrocution method was cruel and unusual, according to the AP.

Owens is among 14 people who have been executed so far this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. All but one of them died by lethal injection.

In January, Alabama inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith marked the first US death row inmate to be executed with nitrogen gas.

CNN’s Jamiel Lynch, Travis Caldwell, Dakin Andone, Isabel Rosales, John Fritze and Cheri Mossburg contributed to this report.

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