South Carolina executed its first death row inmate in 13 years, administering a lethal injection to Freddie Owens, as per reported by BBC.
A jury found Owens, 46, guilty of killing shop worker Irene Graves during a 1997 armed robbery in Greenville.
Despite his co-defendant’s sworn testimony last week, which claimed Owens wasn’t present at the time of the robbery and murder, he was executed.
The South Carolina Supreme Court refused to postpone Owens’ execution, stating that the accusations contradicted testimony given at his trial.
The Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, South Carolina executed Owens on Friday evening.
He died at 18:55 local time (22:55 GMT) after receiving an injection of pentobarbital. He did not make any concluding statements.
His death came after the state halted executions due to prison officials’ inability to get the medication required for lethal injections.
In 1999, two years after Graves’ murder, a jury found Owens guilty of murder, armed robbery, and criminal conspiracy and sentenced him to death.
CNN station WHNS reports that the day after his conviction, he murdered his cellmate in jail.
According to The State, Owens was 19 when he and Steve Golden, then 18, held Graves at gunpoint while attempting to rob the convenience store where she worked.
According to Golden’s testimony during Owens’ trial, Owens shot and murdered Graves when she failed to access a safe beneath the counter.
Graves, 41, was a single mother of three when she died.
Owens’ lawyers attempted to stop his execution several times, including twice in September. Nonetheless, the court denied each request.
In the most recent attempt, attorneys asserted Owens’ innocence using an affidavit Golden wrote on Wednesday.
The court refused the motion to postpone the execution, stating that the new affidavit was “squarely inconsistent with Golden’s testimony at Owens’s 1999 trial” and the statement he gave to police shortly after their arrest.
According to authorities, several witnesses stated that Owens told them that he shot Graves.
Advocates opposed the death penalty, as did Owens’ mother, who requested state clemency, which Governor Henry McMaster declined.
Owens’ mother issued a statement hours before his death, describing it as a “grave injustice perpetrated against my son.”
“Freddie has maintained his innocence since day one,” his mother, Dora Mason, told local news outlet the Greenville News.
In South Carolina, inmates can choose to die by lethal injection, electric chair, or firing squad.
According to the Greenville News, Owens deferred the decision to his counsel, who opted for lethal injection.
Journalists who witnessed the execution reported that Graves’ family was also present.
