South Carolina executed Freddie Eugene Owens for the shooting death of a convenience store clerk on Friday as his mother begged officials to reconsider, saying they were committing a "grave injustice" in light of a new sworn statement from a key witness. Owens, 46, was executed by lethal injection at the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, becoming the first inmate to be put to death by the state in more than a decade and the 14th in the U.S. this year, reports USA Today. A jury found Owens guilty of murdering Irene Grainger Graves, 41, a single mother of three.
"Freddie Owens did not kill Ms. Graves. His death ... is a tragedy," said his attorney, Gerald "Bo" King. "Mr. Owens’s childhood was marked by suffering on a scale that is hard to comprehend. He spent his adulthood in prison for a crime that he did not commit. The legal errors, hidden deals, and false evidence that made tonight possible should shame us all." Last Wednesday, Owens' co-defendant signed a sworn statement saying that Owens didn't shoot Graves and was not even at the scene of the crime, reversing his decades-old story, according to the Greenville News, The statement failed to sway the court or Gov. Henry McMaster, who denied Owens clemency. Irene Graves' son, Arte Graves, believes the last-minute sworn statement came too late. "If it was true, I feel he should've said something earlier, that's something that person will have to deal with their conscience," Graves said. The co-defendant, Steven Golden, said he went along with detectives who told him to say that Owens was with him during the robbery, saying he was afraid of getting the death penalty. Golden said he "substituted Freddie for the person who was really with me ... that night."
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