COLUMBIA, S.C. — At Broad River Correctional Institution on Friday, Freddie Eugene Owens will meet visitors for the final time. At some point, he'll be offered his final meal, and then prepare for what will be the state of South Carolina's first execution in 13 years.
Barring any last-minute stay or clemency by the governor, Owens will die by lethal injection, a decision Owens opted to have his attorney decide because choosing how he would die, he said, is akin to suicide and against his religious beliefs.
Owens converted to Islam and goes by the name Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah. Court records refer to him as Freddie Owens.
Friday's execution will end a years-long fight by advocates to stop the death penalty in the state. And it opens the door to at least five more executions in South Carolina over the next few months and into next year.
For years, executions in South Carolina were placed on hold in large part because the state said it couldn't obtain lethal injection drugs. The practice is set to restart this week after years of court proceedings that followed the Legislature's passage of a so-called shield law to keep drug suppliers secret and a law that made the electric chair the default execution method and added a new option, firing squad.
Owens was convicted at age 19 of murder in the Nov. 1, 1997 shooting death of Irene Grainger Graves, a 41-year-old Greenville convenience store clerk and a single mom of three. In 1999, Owens was sentenced to death. Before his sentencing, Owens confessed to brutally killing his cellmate, Christopher Bryan Lee, at the local jail.
Owens' scheduled execution is a first for Gov. Henry McMaster in the office of governor.
As the former S.C. attorney general, McMaster's office oversaw a handful of executions.
McMaster told reporters he can remember the "relief on their (family member's) faces and the sobs" while sitting in a conference room awaiting news of the execution.
The 77-year-old, now in his second term, has never been a witness to one.
"This is a question of law, and I think South Carolina's law is one of that the vast majority of the people support," McMaster said this month. "... It is a difficult question. Justice must be provided, all factors weighed. And that's what the prosecution, the jurors, the appeals, all of that are designed to see that we're not making a mistake."
Two days before Owens' scheduled execution, his attorneys asked a federal judge to intervene but the judge declined to stop the execution. The South Carolina Supreme Court has already said it would not halt Owens' execution.
Owens' attorneys have also asked McMaster to grant clemency, citing in part a lack of physical and forensic evidence.
"There is a surveillance video tape from the store which shows two masked assailants, but there's no way of identifying who they are," his attorney, Gerald "Bo" King, told SC Public Radio.
King said the now-46-year-old Owens' conviction was based on testimony from a codefendant, Steven Golden, who struck a plea deal with prosecutors and testified against Owens.
"And that was not disclosed to the jury or to defense counsel," King said.
Golden recanted his testimony Wednesday, saying in an affidavit that Owens was not present when he robbed the Speedway on Nov. 1, 1997.
"I'm coming forward now because I know Freddie's execution date is September 20 and I don't want Freddie to be executed for something he didn't do," Golden said in his affidavit. "This has weighed heavily on my mind and I want to have a clear conscience."
Once again, on Thursday the state Supreme Court denied Owens' request for a stay, saying he failed to demonstrate "exceptional circumstances."
Freddie Owens motion to Reconsider Denial of Stay of execution, Post-Conviction Relief and Habeas Corpus has been denied. His execution is set for tomorrow. https://t.co/fDubuJJWfi pic.twitter.com/uSCBRcUBPp
— SC Supreme Court Opinion Bot (@SCSupremeCourt) September 19, 2024
In earlier court filings, the S.C. Attorney General's Office said "the evidence certainly supported that he (Owens) was (the shooter) by multiple admissions and identification by type of mask."
"Malice was not at issue, only identity, and a death sentence is constitutional for either of the two-armed men who killed Ms. Graves during the armed robbery," the state said.
Owens' attorneys have also cited his upbringing in their petition, saying he suffered from abuse and neglect from his home to his incarceration in a juvenile detention center.
"Those experiences caused significant organic damage to Khalil’s young and developing brain, impairing his judgment and decision-making," attorneys said. "Because Khalil’s youth and traumas prevented him from functioning as an adult, it is unjust to punish him as one."
No South Carolina governor in the modern era has granted clemency.
McMaster, who plans to be in his Statehouse office Friday surrounded by his lawyers and close advisors, has so far declined to say whether he will spare Owens' life when he gets the call from the death chamber just before 6 p.m.
“When the rule of law has been followed, there really is only one answer,” he said.
South Carolina has not carried out an execution since 2011.
Owens' execution on Friday will restart a process that for years was involuntarily paused due to the lack of lethal injection drugs and lawmakers' hesitance to pass legislation meant to hide the identities of the drug suppliers.
For years, inmates had only two methods of execution to choose from: electric chair and the former default lethal injection, leaving the state unable to carry out executions if the latter was chosen.
State lawmakers passed a law in 2021 that added a firing squad option and made electrocution the default method. South Carolina is now one of five states offering execution by firing squad, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Two years later, McMaster signed into law so-called shield legislation that allows the state to buy the drugs but hides the names of the suppliers.
The state has since gone from using three drugs to one, the sedative pentobarbital.
In the state's high court earlier this year, attorneys for four inmates who've exhausted their appeals, including Owens, argued the state has continued to keep information about the drug tests and its potency secret.
The S.C. Supreme Court later has ruled the available execution methods legal.
Owens' attorneys have reiterated their stance on secrecy over the lethal injection drug, arguing in court filings this month that the state's Department of Corrections has still not provided enough information about the drug.
The state has countered that argument in court records.
The drug, they said, was tested independently by the State Law Enforcement Division.
"Owens should not be allowed to transmogrify an act of legislative grace to elect a method of execution into a sword to delay his execution and to mandate that the state provide more information than it would have to do if Owens were not given a choice of methods," the state said.
Who will see the execution?
Per South Carolina law, in addition to the staff who carry out the execution, the victim's family is allowed three witnesses and three media witnesses are allowed in the room to witness the execution.
The law also allows inside the room the prosecutor from the county where the crime occurred and the chief law enforcement official who oversaw the case. The corrections department allows an attorney and a religious leader on behalf of the inmate.
Telephones, cameras and recording devices are not allowed inside the witness room during an execution.
Citing policy, the state corrections department said it does not release information about how the drugs are administered.
Once a doctor makes a death declaration, the media witnesses will be taken to a media gathering room and hold a press conference with the corrections department about the execution.
Five more inmates exhaust appeals in SC
There are 32 inmates who currently sit on South Carolina's death row.
The state Supreme Court last month agreed to allow for at least five weeks between executions. After Owens, five have exhausted their appeals. They are:
- Richard Moore, 55: Convicted of killing Spartanburg convenience store clerk James Mahoney in 1999
- Marion Bowman, 44: Convicted of killing an Orangeburg woman in 2001
- Brad Sigmon, 66: Convicted of killing his estranged girlfriend’s parents in Greenville County in 2001
- Mikal Mahdi, 41: Convicted of shooting an off-duty police officer in Calhoun County in 2004
- Steven Bixby, 57: Convicted of killing two police officers in Abbeville in 2003
SC Public Radio's Victoria Hansen and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
