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South Carolina inmate dies by lethal injection in state's first execution in 13 years

Rev. Hillary Taylor protests the planned execution of Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Columbia, S.C. Owens is set to be the first person to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
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AP
Rev. Hillary Taylor protests the planned execution of Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Columbia, S.C. Owens is set to be the first person to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death Friday as the state restarted executions after an unintended 13-year pause because prison officials couldn't get the drugs needed for lethal injections.

Owens was convicted of the 1997 killing of a Greenville convenience store clerk during a robbery. While on trial, Owens killed an inmate at a county jail. His confession to that attack was read to two different juries and a judge who all sentenced him to death.

When the curtain to the death chamber opened, Owens, 46, was strapped to a gurney, his arms stretched to his sides. Owens made no final statement, but after the drug was administered, he said "bye" to his lawyer and she said "bye" to him.

He smiled slightly and his facial expression did not change much before he appeared to lose consciousness after about a minute. Then his eyes closed and he took several deep breaths. His breathing got shallower and his face twitched for another four or five minutes before the movements stopped.

A doctor came in and declared him dead a little over 10 minutes later at 6:55 p.m.

Owens' last-ditch appeals were repeatedly denied, including by a federal court Friday morning. Owens also petitioned for a stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court. South Carolina's governor and corrections director swiftly filed a reply, stating the high court should reject Owens' petition. The filing said nothing is exceptional about his case.

The high court denied the request shortly after the scheduled start time of the execution.

His last chance to avoid death was for Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to commute his sentence to life in prison. McMaster denied Owens' request as well, stating that he had "carefully reviewed and thoughtfully considered" Owens' application for clemency.

McMaster said earlier that he would follow historical tradition and announce his decision minutes before the lethal injection begins when prison officials call him and the state attorney general to make sure there is no reason to delay the execution. The former prosecutor had promised to review Owens' clemency petition but has said he tends to trust prosecutors and juries.

First execution in 13 years

Owens may be the first of several inmates to die in the state's death chamber at Broad River Correctional Institution. Five other inmates are out of appeals and the South Carolina Supreme Court has cleared the way to hold an execution every five weeks.

South Carolina first tried to add the firing squad to restart executions after its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and no company was willing to publicly sell them more. But the state had to pass a shield law keeping the drug supplier and much of the protocol for executions secret to be able to reopen the death chamber.

To carry out executions, the state switched from a three-drug method to a new protocol of using just the sedative pentobarbital. The new process is similar to how the federal government kills inmates, according to state prison officials.

South Carolina law allows condemned inmates to choose lethal injection, the new firing squad or the electric chair built in 1912. Owens allowed his lawyer to choose how he died, saying he felt if he made the choice he would be a party to his own death and his religious beliefs denounce suicide.

Owens changed his name to Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah while in prison but court and prison records continue to refer to him as Owens.

The crimes

Owens was convicted of killing Irene Graves in 1999. Prosecutors said he fired a shot into the head of the single mother of three who worked three jobs when she said she couldn't open the store's safe.

But hanging over his case is another killing: After his conviction, but before he was sentenced in Graves' killing, Owens fatally attacked a fellow jail inmate, Christopher Lee.

Owens gave a detailed confession about how he stabbed Lee, burned his eyes, choked and stomped him, ending by saying he did it "because I was wrongly convicted of murder," according to the written account of an investigator.

That confession was read to each jury and judge who went on to sentence Owens to death. Owens had two different death sentences overturned on appeal only to end up back on death row.

Owens was charged with murder in Lee's death but was never tried. Prosecutors dropped the charges with the right to restore them in 2019 around the time Owens ran out of regular appeals.

Final appeals

In his final appeal, Owens' lawyers said prosecutors never presented scientific evidence that Owens pulled the trigger when Graves was killed and the chief evidence against him was a co-defendant who pleaded guilty and testified that Owens was the killer.

Owens' attorneys provided a sworn statement two days before the execution from Steven Golden saying Owens was not in the store, contradicting his trial testimony. Prosecutors said other friends of Owens and his former girlfriend testified that he bragged about killing the clerk.

"South Carolina is on the verge of executing a man for a crime he did not commit. We will continue to advocate for Mr. Owens," attorney Gerald "Bo" King said in a statement.

Owens' lawyers also said he was just 19 when the killing happened and that he had suffered brain damage from physical and sexual violence while in a juvenile prison.

South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty plans a vigil outside the prison about 90 minutes before Owens is scheduled to die.

South Carolina restarts the death penalty

South Carolina's last execution was in May 2011. It took a decade of wrangling in the Legislature — first adding the firing squad as a method and later passing a shield law — to get capital punishment restarted.

South Carolina has put 43 inmates to death since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, it was carrying out an average of three executions a year. Only nine states have put more inmates to death.

But since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina's death row population has dwindled. The state had 63 condemned inmates in early 2011. It now has 31 after Owens' death Friday. About 20 inmates have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.

A vigil in Greenville

Two dozen demonstrators gathered at Triune Mercy Center in Greenville Friday evening to hold vigil on behalf of Freddie Owens – the first person to be executed by the State of South Carolina since Jeffrey Motts in 2011.

Owens, who converted to Islam in prison and also went by the name Kalil Divine Black Sun Allah, was convicted in the shooting death of convenience store clerk Irene Grainger Graves in Greenville in 1997.

Trevor Barton, associate pastor at Triune, an interdenominational Christian church in Greenville, led prayers for Graves and her family and for Owens and his family and loved ones.

No mention was made of the family of Christopher Bryan Lee, whom Owens admitted to killing in prison in 1999 – after he was convicted of Graves’ murder. Owens was never prosecuted for Lee’s murder.

No one in attendance at the Greenville vigil said they knew anyone from the Graves, Lee, or Owens families.

Barton said the vigil served four distinct purposes – to pray for the Graves and Owens families – “to let them know they’re loved an prayed for” – to pray for Gov. Henry McMaster to grant Owens clemency, and to pray the justice system.

“We know the justice system is fallible,” Barton said. “If someone is executed … and sometime down the road, if they made a mistake, it can’t be fixed. You can’t give someone their life back.”

Nikki Day, a member of Triune, said she has worked for decades with families who have been connected to the death penalty – some, the families of those executed; some, the families of murder victims for whom someone was eventually put to death.

She questioned the concept of closure, which is often presented as an argument supporting a death sentence.

“The system is nuts,” she said. “And we don’t need to be.”

In answer to the question, have families you’ve spoken with ever told you they feel a sense of closure following an execution, she simply said no.

The prominence of the City of Greenville in Owens’ story is a major reason why a vigil was held here. One of four across the state Friday – another took place in Charleston and two in Columbia, including one outside Broad River Correctional Institute, where the execution took place – the Greenville vigil held special significance for protesters like Susie Smith.

“This is where he grew up, and we need to own that,” said Smith, a former Christian pastor who also has been one of the most vocal critics of the death penalty in the state. She said that Greenville needed to be represented in Owens’ execution not just because he is from the city, but also because the killing for which he was sentenced to death occurred here.

Smith was also among the most hopeful that a string of appeal, calls for clemency, and even an eleventh-hour statement by Steven Golden – who was arrested with Owens in connection with the killing of Irene Graves – that Owens did not, in fact, kill Graves would cause Gov. Henry McMaster to pause the execution.

Attendees placed candles at the altar of Triune as 6 p.m., the time set for Owens’ execution. Barton said it was “so people can see the light of humanity in each other.”

In the hour following, all but a few attendees left the vigil. Those who remained hovered over cell phones, hearing conflicting messages about whether the execution actually occurred, as hope briefly ebbed and flowed that their prayers had succeeded.

Ultimately the prayers offered up at Triune Friday evening did not stop the execution from going forward. At 6:55 p.m. Friday evening, Owens was pronounced dead.

As word of Owens’ death became official, Susie Smith tearfully broke the news to attendees, who took the news with somber acceptance.

“As a person of faith,” Smith said soon after, “I think we have to know … there is nothing good that comes from killing another person, so I ask God’s mercy on all of us.”

Smith said the vigil served as an important beam of light shining on a situation shrouded in secrecy.

“We try to make [executions] as impersonal as possible, so that we don’t have to feel what we’re doing,” she said, referring to the extreme secrecy surrounding the mechanisms and drugs used in executions, and the legally shielded personnel who carry the sentences out.

“As long as we continue to elect people … who will approve these laws … we’re all guilty [of killing],” she said.

The demonstrations, she said, “are about bringing to light something that the state and the governor want to remain in the darkness. The more this is hidden, the more they can continue to kill people.”

No member of Graves’ family returned calls to comment on Owens’ execution. Graves’ daughter, Ensley Graves-Lee did, however, tell FOX Carolina that, because she was 10 years old at the time of her mother’s murder, she never properly processed what the killing meant.

The other family in the story of Freddie Owens is that of Christopher Bryan Lee, whom Owens killed in prison in 1999. Owens admitted to killing Lee, who was serving a traffic-related sentence at the time he was killed. Owens killed Lee between his conviction for the Graves murder and the sentence of death. He was never convicted of Lee’s murder.

Lee’s parents spoke called for “justice” in 1999, but have since died. Lee’s brother, Michael, chose not to talk to South Carolina Public Radio regarding Owens’ execution.

In 2021, when Owens was first scheduled to die – the execution was delayed because South Carolina lacked access to the proper drugs to carry out a lethal injection – the Lee family issued a press statement, also to FOX Carolina, that they were bitterly disappointed by the delay, as it had caused continuing reliving of the death of Bryan.

He had been scheduled for execution in 2021, but the sentence was postponed because South Carolina did not have access to the drugs required for lethal injection.

This deferral sparked calls for alternative forms of capital punishment. South Carolina now offers those on death row a choice between dying by lethal injection, firing squad, or the electric chair. Owens refused to decide on a method, saying that doing so would violate his religion by being tantamount to suicide. His attorneys chose lethal injection on his behalf; had no choice been made, the default method would have been the electric chair.

Scott Morgan is the Upstate multimedia reporter for South Carolina Public Radio, based in Rock Hill. He cut his teeth as a newspaper reporter and editor in New Jersey before finding a home in public radio in Texas. Scott joined South Carolina Public Radio in March of 2019. His work has appeared in numerous national and regional publications as well as on NPR and MSNBC. He's won numerous state, regional, and national awards for his work including a national Edward R. Murrow.