A South Carolina man convicted of killing a store clerk during a 1997 robbery was executed Friday after the state resumed executions following a 13-year hiatus.

Freddie Owens, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m. at the Broad River Correctional Institution (BRCI) in Columbia, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal and a request to stay his execution.

His last meal consisted of two cheeseburgers, French fries, a well-done ribeye steak, six chicken wings, two strawberry lemonades and a slice of apple pie, the South Carolina Department of Corrections told Fox News Digital.

Owens was convicted in 1997 of killing a Greenville store clerk during a robbery. During the trial, however, he killed an inmate in a county jail. His confession to that attack was read to two different juries and a judge, all of whom sentenced him to death.

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Freddie Eugene Owens (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)

While strapped to a stretcher, Owens refused to make a final statement but said goodbye to his attorney before losing consciousness in the BRCI death chamber.

His last chance to avoid death was when South Carolina’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, commuted his sentence to life in prison. McMaster also denied Owens’ request, saying he had “carefully considered and thoroughly considered” Owens’ request for clemency.

Owens was the first inmate sentenced to death in South Carolina in over a decade. Five other inmates have exhausted their appeals, and the South Carolina Supreme Court has paved the way for an execution to be carried out every five weeks.

THE FIRST EXECUTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN OVER 13 YEARS IS PLANNED FOR NEXT MONTH

Rev. Hillary Taylor protests the planned execution of 46-year-old Freddie Eugene Owens on Friday in Columbia, SC (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

South Carolina initially tried to The firing squad was supposed to resume executions after its supply of drugs for lethal injection had been exhausted, but no company was willing to publicly sell more to the state.

To carry out executions, the state switched from a three-drug method to a new protocol that uses only the sedative Pentobarbital. The new procedure is similar to the one the federal government uses to kill inmates, state prison officials said, according to the Associated Press.

This undated photo from the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the state’s execution chamber in Columbia, South Carolina, with the electric chair (right) and the firing squad chair (left). (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP/File)

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Inmates also have the right to choose between lethal injection, the new firing squad, and the electric chair, invented in 1912.

Owens allowed his lawyer to decide how he wants to die. He said he felt that if he made that decision he would be involved in his own death and that his religious beliefs were not against suicide.