September 21 (UPI) — South Carolina authorities have executed Freddie Owens, convicted of killing a convenience store employee in 1997, marking the first execution in the state in more than a decade.
Owens was shot and executed injection Friday night at Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, SC
The 46-year-old was convicted of killing convenience store employee Irene Graves during a 1997 robbery in Greenville, South Carolina.
Relatives of the 41-year-old single mother of three attended the execution.
Owens was 19 at the time of the murder and was convicted two years later, partly based on the testimony of his co-defendant.
He becomes the first prisoner to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years, as the state has struggled for years with the supply of drugs used to carry out the procedure.
Authorities pronounced Owens dead at 6:55 p.m. ET Friday, about 20 minutes after the operation began. He did not make a final statement, other than a brief goodbye to his attorney.
Gov. Henry McMaster, R-S.C., rejected a request for clemency from Owens’ lawyers.
The state Supreme Court had previously refused to grant a stay of execution requested hours before the execution.
Days before the execution, Owens’ lawyers submitted a sworn statement of co-defendant Steven Golden. Golden was sentenced to 30 years in prison for that crime, but said he was pressured by police decades ago to name Owens as the one who pulled the trigger, killing Graves.
Golden has sworn that Owens was not even at the scene of the robbery, but the South Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday denied Owens’ request for a new trial.
