A man convicted of a 1997 murder died by lethal injection Friday in the southeastern US state of South Carolina, the state’s first death row inmate executed in 13 years.
US media reported Freddie Owens, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:55 pm local time after he was administered a lethal injection.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster rejected Owens’s appeal for clemency, and the Supreme Court denied a stay of execution.
Owens was convicted in 1999 of the murder of a convenience store clerk Irene Graves, a 41-year-old mother of three, during a robbery in Greenville, South Carolina on Halloween night in 1997.
Surveillance footage played at his trial showed two men wearing masks enter the store around 4:00 am, according to court documents.
They stole $37 from a cash register and led Graves to the back of the store, where she was shot in the head after she was unable to open a safe.
At the trial, a codefendant, Steven Golden, testified that Owens was the gunman wearing a ski mask who shot Graves. Golden, who received a lesser sentence, has since recanted his testimony.