A man who killed two people in cold blood uttered just one word before he was executed in a South Carolina prison on Friday – the state’s first in 13 years.
Freddie Owens said ‘bye’ to his attorney and was then strapped into a gurney where he awaited the lethal injection that led to his ultimate demise.
Owens remained conscious for a minute before his eyes closed, his breaths shortened and his face twitched for five minutes before he died.
The 46-year-old killed convenience store clerk Irene Graves during a botched robbery in Greenville in 1997.
During his trial, he murdered fellow inmate Christopher Lee at a county jail which earned him the death penalty.
Owens’ execution was the first carried out in South Carolina in 13 years amid a struggle to source the required drugs for lethal injections.
After he said his farewell, his attorney responded ‘bye’ and the injection was administered.
A doctor came in and declared him dead a little more than 10 minutes later at 6.55pm.
His last meal was two cheeseburgers, French fries, well-done ribeye steak, six chicken wings, two strawberry sodas and a slice of apple pie.
Owens’ last-ditch appeals were repeatedly denied, including by a federal court on Friday morning.
His execution was thrown into last minute chaos after a key witness said in a sworn statement that he lied in order to have him convicted.
On Wednesday, his lawyers filed a statement from his co-defendant Steven Golden saying that Owens wasn’t at the store at the time when Graves was killed.
Golden said that he had blamed Owens, who was 19 at the time, because he was high on cocaine and facing pressure from police.
He wrote: ‘I thought the real shooter or his associates might kill me if I named him to police. I am still afraid of that. But Freddie was not there.’
But despite Golden’s recantation, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled on Thursday it wasn’t enough to halt prison officials from executing Owens.
Prosecutors said that several other witnesses testified that Owens had been the one that pulled the trigger.
Those witnesses had been friends of Owens who said he had bragged to them about killing Graves. His former girlfriend also testified that he confessed to the killing.
Since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina’s death row population has dwindled.
The state had 63 condemned people in early 2011. It now has 31 after Owens’ death on Friday.
About 20 people have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.
