South Carolina’s longest-serving condemned inmate spent a record-breaking 42 years on death row before dying of natural causes at age 81. It ended one of the state’s most haunting criminal sagas. Fred Singleton was convicted in 1983 on multiple charges — including r—, strangulation, and robbery of 73-year-old widow Elizabeth Lominick in Newberry County, a sentence reportedly longer than anyone else’s in South Carolina’s history.
His fate remained frozen for more than four decades, trapped in legal limbo because of questions over his mental competency. Court documents show Singleton was declared unfit for execution after the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that he did not understand what it meant to die in the electric chair. During questioning, he could answer only ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ showing little sign of comprehension.
The high court issued its decision in 1993, stating that his death sentence should remain in place in case future advances in psychology made him mentally fit for execution. However, the court also ruled that he could not be forced to take medication solely to make him eligible for execution…