On Friday, Freddie Eugene Owens was executed by lethal injection in South Carolina after doubts about his guilt had arisen in recent days. His mother says the state is committing a “grave injustice”
A vigil in memory of Freddie “Khalil” Owens on South Carolina’s death row
A vigil was held for Freddie “Khalil” Owens on September 19, 2024. His execution is scheduled for September 20, 2024.
Freddie Eugene Owens was executed in South Carolina on Friday for shooting a store clerk while his mother pleaded with state officials to reconsider the case, saying they committed a “grave injustice” in light of a new affidavit from a key witness in the case.
Owens, 46, was executed by lethal injection at the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia. He is the first inmate to be put to death in the state-mandated manner in more than a decade and the 14th in the country this year.
A South Carolina jury found Owens guilty of murdering Irene Grainger Graves, 41, a single mother of three whose son she described as a hard-working and fun mom in an interview with USA TODAY this week.
On Wednesday, Owens’ co-defendant in the robbery signed an affidavit saying Owens did not shoot Graves and was not even at the crime scene, rebutting his decades-old version of events, according to a report in the Greenville News, part of the USA TODAY Network.
“Freddie Owens is not the person who shot Irene Graves at the Speedway on November 1, 1997,” Golden told the South Carolina Supreme Court. “Freddie was not present when I robbed the Speedway that day.”
This statement failed to convince either the court or Republican Governor Henry McMaster, who denied Owens a request for clemency shortly before his execution.
Here’s what you need to know about Owens’ execution.
The murder of Irene Granger Graves
Owens and his co-defendant Steven Golden were convicted of Graves’ killing, which occurred during a robbery at the convenience store where she worked in Greenville, South Carolina, court records show.
Graves, a single mother who worked three jobs to support her children, was shot in the head after telling the men she couldn’t open the store safe. Owens has always maintained he was home in bed at the time of the robbery, and now that’s backed up by a new affidavit from Golden.
Golden said he went along with detectives who told him to say Owens was with him during the robbery because he was afraid of the death penalty. In a statement to police, Golden said he “mistook Freddie as the person who was really with me at the Speedway that night.”
“I did it because I knew the police wanted me to, and also because I thought the real shooter or his accomplices would kill me if I told the police,” he said. “I’m still afraid of that. But Freddie wasn’t actually there.”
Golden made a plea deal with prosecutors to testify against Owens and avoid the death penalty. His murder charge was reduced to manslaughter and he was sentenced to 28 years in prison.
The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Owens’ execution could go forward because Golden’s new testimony did not trump alleged confessions to his girlfriend, his mother and two police officers.
Freddie Owens’ mother asks for mercy, lawyer “disappointed”
Owens’ mother, Dora Mason, called out all decision-makers who could have intervened in her son’s execution in light of Golden’s new testimony, saying they were committing “a grave injustice.”
“Today I am witnessing the state’s unwillingness to consider new evidence, its refusal to acknowledge the possibility of error,” she said in a statement obtained by The Greenville News. “Freddie is more than his conviction; he is a human being, a son, a brother and a friend. He deserves compassion, understanding and a fair chance at justice. Instead, the system has failed him and the victim at every turn.”
Mason, whose statement was made just hours before the execution, urged the citizens of South Carolina to “consider the fallibility of our justice system and the irreversibility of the death penalty… I implore you to question the morality of killing a human being in the name of justice, especially when there is doubt.”
One of Owens’ attorneys, Gerald Bo King, said he was “disappointed” by the state Supreme Court’s decision, “even though compelling evidence of his innocence had come to light.” South Carolina was “executing a man for a crime he did not commit.”
Democratic state Senator Deon Tedder wrote in a letter to the governor that he had received several concerned calls about the new information in the case. The execution must be stopped because “it is imperative that our state get it right when it comes to actions that cannot be undone.”
“We do not want the state of South Carolina to execute the wrong person for the first time in over a decade,” he said.
USA TODAY has reached out to the governor’s office for comment.
Letters from a man sentenced to death: Read vulnerable, angry thoughts from Freddie Owens
Graves’ son attends Owens’ execution
Arte Graves, Irene Graves’ eldest child, told USA TODAY earlier this week that he would be present at Owens’ execution.
“Honestly, I just need to see him go,” he said. “I need to see him go.”
Arte Graves described his mother as a hard-working woman and someone who gave him a beautiful childhood full of happy memories.
“She was a good woman, a funny woman… We always had fun,” he said. “I miss her every day.”
When will the next execution take place in the USA?
Owens’ execution is the first of five scheduled in the United States within just six days. On Tuesday, Texas is scheduled to execute Travis James Mullis for the 2008 murder of his young son, and Missouri is scheduled to execute Marcellus Williams for the death of a former reporter killed in 1998 by stabbings, although prosecutors and victims’ relatives argue he should be spared because he may well be innocent.
Following the double execution on Tuesday, two more executions are expected to take place in a row on Thursday. In Alabama, Alan Eugene Miller, who shot three of his colleagues in 1999, is to be executed with nitrogen gas, despite evidence of his mental illness and a witness to the previous execution by nitrogen gas in January calling the method “gruesome.”
Also on Thursday, Emmanuel Littlejohn is scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma for the 1992 death of a supermarket clerk, although Littlejohn claims he was not the shooter.
If all five executions are carried out, the United States will have executed 18 death row inmates this year, with six more planned and more likely to follow.
Starring: Terry Benjamin II, Amanda Lee Myers
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
