LATEST UPDATE: South Carolina executes first prisoner in 13 years
Freddie Owens
Freddie Owens, 46, was executed by lethal injection on Friday, September 20. He was the first death row inmate in South Carolina to be executed in over 13 years.
Owens was 19 years old when he committed a series of robberies on Halloween night in 1997. Irene Graves, 41, was a clerk at one of the convenience stores he targeted. Owens was reportedly angry that Graves took so long to open the safe and shot her in the head.
Owens was convicted of Graves’ murder in 1999. In the 24 hours between the guilty verdict and sentencing, he killed his cellmate Christopher Bryan Lee in the Greenville County Detention Center. Lee served 90 days in custody on a traffic violation. Owens was never charged with Lee’s murder.
capital punishment
Owens’ execution was delayed for years because of a shortage of lethal injection drugs in South Carolina. The state gained access to the sedative pentobarbital in September 2023 after a law was passed protecting the companies that make and sell the drug.
Owens was given the choice of three methods of execution: lethal injection, electrocution and firing squad. He said the choice would be a sin in his Muslim faith and left the decision to his lawyer, who chose lethal injection.
Owens’ defense team argued that the death penalty was too harsh in this case, but the South Carolina Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal appeals court rejected their emergency requests to stay the execution. Governor Henry McMaster also refused to pardon Owens.
No South Carolina governor in modern history has granted clemency to commute a death sentence to life in prison.
Opponents of the death penalty protested outside the Department of Corrections during Owens’ execution.
Irene Graves
Irene Grainger Graves was 41 years old. She was a single mother working three jobs to support her three children. She was working nights at the old Speedway on Laurens Road when it was robbed by Freddie Owens on Halloween 1997.
FOX Carolina’s Justin Dougherty spoke with Ensley Graves-Lee, Irene’s daughter, who was 10 years old when she lost her mother.
Graves-Lee and her 11-year-old brother were sleeping at home when their mother was killed.
“I don’t know, as a 10-year-old, I processed that… There were, there were no words for it,” Graves-Lee said. “It was hard to find words and actions for the things I needed to do because I had to rely on my mom and she wasn’t there… I don’t think I ever had a chance to process that. It was just about getting to the next day, the next moment, the next year, the next thing.”
Graves-Lee remains very close to her brothers Arte and Jeremy and says they all know the value of hard work – something their mother instilled in them.
Christopher Bryan Lee
Christopher Bryan Lee was being held at the Greenville County Detention Center on a traffic violation after being placed in a cell with Owens in the early morning hours of February 16, 1999.
According to court documents, Owens made a disturbing and detailed confession that he beat, stabbed, strangled, burned and kicked Lee.
In 2021, Lee’s family issued the following statement to FOX Carolina when Owens’ execution was postponed:
“We are very disappointed by this decision. It has been 22 long, frustrating years since Bryan’s murder. Every time we think it is over, the rug is pulled out from under us. We wish the latest legislation on executions had been drafted in a way that would ensure that these criminals are executed on the day of their scheduled execution by any means available, rather than allowing these loopholes in the law. This is just further trauma for the families of the victims. We look forward to the day this nightmare is over.”
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