Freddie Eugene Owens

Freddie Eugene Owens (born March 18, 1978), alias Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, is an American convicted murderer on death row in South Carolina for the 1997 murder of Irene Grainger Graves, a convenience store clerk. Owens was 19 when he and an 18-year-old accomplice shot and killed Graves during a robbery in November 1997.

Freddie Eugene Owens
Mugshot of Freddie Eugene Owens
Born	(1978-03-18) March 18, 1978 South Carolina, U.S.
Conviction(s)	Murder Robbery Criminal use of firearms Conspiracy to commit armed robbery
Criminal penalty	Death (murder) 30 years' imprisonment (robbery; vacated) Five years' imprisonment (firearm use; vacated) Five years' imprisonment (conspiracy to commit robbery; vacated)
Details
Victims	Irene Grainger Graves, 41 (deceased) Christopher Bryan Lee, 28 (deceased)
Date	November 1, 1997 (Graves) February 16, 1999 (Lee)
Location(s)	Greenville County, South Carolina
Imprisoned at	Broad River Correctional Institution

While the accomplice pleaded guilty and was later jailed for voluntary manslaughter, Owens was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1999. The death sentence was overturned twice before re-sentencing trials restored the death penalty for Owens, which was subsequently upheld by the higher courts. Owens was also charged with murdering Christopher Bryan Lee, a fellow prisoner, in 1999.

Owens is scheduled to be executed on September 20, 2024.

Personal life

Born in South Carolina on March 18, 1978, Freddie Eugene Owens, whose mother was 18 when she gave birth to him, was placed under foster care at the age of five, and he reportedly experienced abuse and neglect from his family. He was eventually returned to his biological mother, who married another man after separating from his birth father, who was abusive towards his wife and children. However, Owens's stepfather abused his mother and Owens himself witnessed his grandmother shooting a person when he was seven. Owens was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder at a young age due to his upbringing.

First murder case and trial

On November 1, 1997, in Greenville, Owens and his three friends – Lester Young, Nakeo Vance and Steven Andra Golden – went outdoors together with the intention to commit armed robbery. While Young and Vance were in another location, Golden and Owens barged into a convenience store and held the store's female clerk at gunpoint. According to Golden, who testified in Owens's murder trial, Owens gunned down the 41-year-old clerk, Irene Grainger Graves, after she failed to open the safe, and she died of a gunshot wound to the head. Golden and Owens fled the scene with $37.29 from the cash register and met up with Vance and Young, who were later told that a woman was shot by Owens during a robbery attempt. At the time of her death, Graves was a single mother with two sons and one daughter.

Owens was arrested on November 11, 1997, and together with 18-year-old Golden, was charged with murder. Golden made a plea bargain with the prosecution, who agreed to have the murder charge and death penalty taken off the table. Golden was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 28 years in prison. Young and Vance were also charged in connection with the crime but the outcome of their cases were unknown.

On February 8, 1999, Owens stood trial before a jury at a Greenville County trial court for charges of murder, armed robbery, criminal use of firearms and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Owens reportedly denied murdering Graves and protested his innocence in spite of Golden's testimony that showed Owens directly killed Graves during the robbery. Later sources revealed that the CCTV captured two men – Golden and Owens – entering the store while wearing different masks, and one of them, who wore the ski mask, shot and killed Graves, and the man wearing the ski mask was identified as Owens, while the other, who wore a stocking mask, was Golden.

On February 15, 1999, the jury found Owens guilty of all charges and his sentencing trial was scheduled to take place two days later.

Prison killing and sentencing

Less than 12 hours after he was convicted of the murder of Irene Graves, on February 16, 1999, Freddie Owens killed a fellow prisoner while he was in prison. The victim was identified as 28-year-old Christopher Bryan Lee, who was serving a 90-day jail term for a traffic offense.

On February 17, 1999, a day after the murder of Lee, Owens, who turned up for his sentencing hearing, made a full confession inside the courtroom and recounted how he murdered Lee inside the prison cell he shared with Lee and ten other inmates. Allegedly, Lee taunted Owens about his conviction and even bragged to Owens that his cousin was one of the jurors. Enraged at this, Owens attacked Lee. He struck him in the face, used a ballpoint pen to stab his eye and throat, and repeatedly strangled him with a sheet. Owens ended the assault by bashing Lee's head and burning his eyes and hair with a cigarette lighter, and also suffocating Lee by forcibly closing the left nostril and shoving a pen inside the right nostril. Lee died as a result, and Owens, who maintained his innocence, stated he did so because he was falsely accused. Lee's bereaved family called for an official probe into the death of Lee.

After Owens made the confession, the prosecution and defense made their final submissions on sentence. Although the defense implored the jury to show mercy on account of Owens's troubled childhood and psychiatric condition, the prosecution argued in rebuttal that the confession and circumstances of Graves's murder demonstrated that Owens was a violent and cold-blooded killer who posed as a menace to society and brought the attention of the jury to the tragic consequences of Graves's death that befell on her family, including the fact that her three children had to be sent away under the care of their grandmother, and whatever sympathetic circumstances of Owens's background was no excuse to his abhorrent actions and murderous behavior and he should assume full responsibility for what he did. For this, the prosecution sought the death penalty for Owens.

On that same day, the jury returned with their verdict, sentencing Owens to death for the murder of Graves. For the other charges of robbery, criminal use of firearms, and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, Owens received additional jail terms of 30 years, five years and five years respectively.

After he was sentenced for murdering Graves, Owens and a 19-year-old man named Fred Walker Jr. — who was alleged to be Owens's accomplice in the prison killing – were both charged with the murder of Lee. Subsequently, the second murder charge against Owens was withdrawn in 2019 for the sake of judicial economy as his death sentence was upheld, but it could still be revived at the discretion of the prosecution.

Appeals and re-sentencing bids

On September 4, 2001, Freddie Owens appealed to the South Carolina Supreme Court against his conviction and sentence. Although the Supreme Court affirmed his convictions for murdering Graves and the robberies, the court vacated his death sentence and multiple jail terms for the case itself, and Owens was granted a re-sentencing trial due to procedural errors behind his original sentencing trial back then.

On February 17, 2003, Owens was once again sentenced to death. Circuit Judge John Kittredge opined that due to the brutality of the murder and other instances of violent behaviour in prison, it reflected that Owens had a "total and utter disregard for the rights and safety of others" and his case was the "worst of the worst" that made the death penalty the only appropriate sentence for him.

On November 20, 2004, a year after the death sentence was restored in his case, Owens was once again granted a second re-sentencing trial after his appeal was allowed by the South Carolina Supreme Court, after it ruled that there were trial errors in his first re-sentencing trial.

The second re-sentencing trial, which was held before a jury, took place in 2006, and for the third time, Owens was sentenced to death. However, for the firearm-related charges, Owens did not receive any prison sentence as South Carolina law forbids a convict from being sentenced for firearm offenses if the convict was given the death penalty or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Although Owens appealed against his third death sentence, this time round however, the South Carolina Supreme Court rejected his appeal and upheld the death sentence on July 14, 2008. The court unanimously ruled that the prosecution did not breach their duties to a fair trial for Owens when they presented evidence of Owens's disciplinary issues in prison prior to his sentencing. Most of these misbehaviours include setting fires in his cell, sexual misconduct, using vulgar language, as well as past incidents of Owens stabbing a guard and a prisoner and possessing at least seven home-made knives.

Death row and current status

Conversion to Islam and cancelled execution attempts

While the legal process was ongoing in his case, Freddie Owens remained on death row at Broad River Correctional Institution while awaiting his execution. In 2015, Owens converted to Islam and he went by the Muslim name Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, although he continued using his original name in court proceedings for clarity.

Originally, Owens's death sentence was ordered to be carried out on October 3, 2008, but the execution did not proceed due to the U.S. Supreme Court granting a stay of execution for Owens while pending an appeal. Later, Owens was rescheduled to be executed on January 10, 2009, but the execution date was delayed for legal reasons. 12 years later, a third death warrant was approved, rescheduling Owens's new execution date as June 25, 2021, but it was again ultimately staved off due to Owens's last-minute appeal and the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the executions of Owens and another inmate Brad Sigmon should be postponed until they were given the choice of death by electrocution or firing squad.

At the time of Owens's third death warrant, there was an unofficial moratorium on executions in South Carolina since 2011 due to lack of supplies of drugs used for lethal injection executions, in addition to the expiration of the existing drug supplies and refusal of drug companies to sell their drugs to the state for the purpose of carrying out executions. In 2021, ten years after the state's last execution, the South Carolina state governor Henry McMaster signed new laws to revive the electric chair and introduce execution by firing squad as alternative methods should the option of lethal injection be unavailable, and to allow inmates to choose whichever execution method they preferred. In September 2023, it was reported that the state managed to purchase drugs to restart executions by lethal injection.

Legal challenge against execution protocols

In 2023, Owens was one of the several death row inmates who filed a lawsuit to the courts of South Carolina, seeking to ban the use of firing squad and electrocution on the grounds that they were cruel and unusual punishments and would cause unnecessary pain and suffering to the condemned. The state's legal representatives submitted that the execution methods fit the existing protocols and the law did not make it necessary that death had to be instantaneous or painless.

On July 31, 2024, a five-judge panel of the South Carolina Supreme Court issued its final ruling, declaring that electrocution and firing squad were both legal and these two methods were approved by a majority of the judges (three for firing squad and four for the electric chair), which paved the way for the potential resumption of executions for all the 32 inmates on the state's death row, including Owens. At this point in time, Owens and four more death row inmates – Marion Bowman Jr., Richard Bernard Moore, Brad Sigmon and Mikal Mahdi – had exhausted all avenues of appeal and were the most likely candidates to be in line for execution in the aftermath of the verdict.

Fourth death warrant

On August 23, 2024, less than a month after the Supreme Court's ruling, the death warrant of Owens was issued and his execution was expected to be carried out on September 20, 2024, making him the first person in South Carolina scheduled to be executed in 13 years.

Owens was given a chance to select which of the three execution methods he preferred for his death sentence to be carried out, and the deadline was on September 6, 2024. Should Owens not make a choice between electrocution, firing squad or lethal injection, his death sentence would be carried out via the default method of the electric chair. Corrections Director Bryan Stirling stated that all the methods were available, as the drugs were pure and could be used, and the electric chair was tested without problems, and a firing squad had the ammunition and training to carry out executions.

Apart from this, a court order was issued to allow the state to carry out another five executions after Owens, with a five-week interval set in place between each execution, overruling the inmates' request for a 13-week gap between each execution listed in the order. After Owens, the five inmates next slated for execution were: Steven Bixby, Richard Moore, Brad Sigmon, Marion Bowman Jr. and Mikal Mahdi.

Owens chose to not to personally select any execution methods to facilitate his upcoming execution, and instead, he wanted to give one of his lawyers the power of attorney to choose the method of execution for him. Explaining why he made this decision, Owens said he was a Muslim and in Islam, it was a sin to commit suicide and letting Owens to choose the way he preferred to die was akin to a form of suicide, and he thus abstained from making his choice for religious reasons, and Owens himself confirmed he did not want to die by electrocution. The South Carolina Supreme Court granted his request on September 4, 2024, and allowed Owens's counsel to make the choice on his behalf.

On September 6, 2024, Owens's lawyer Emily Paavola confirmed that she selected lethal injection for her client. Paavola explained her decision in a statement, "I have known Mr Owens for 15 years. Under the circumstances, and in light of the information currently available to me, I made the best decision I felt I could make on his behalf."

In response to the death warrant of Owens, Sherry Brooks, the sister of his second victim Christopher Bryan Lee, told the The Post and Courier that the family had waited for justice to be served and it was time for Owens to die for having killed her brother "for a lack of better words". As for Graves's family, although the newspaper were unable to contact them for the article featuring Brooks's statement, one of her children, the youngest child, became a speech pathologist and advocate for children's literacy, while the eldest child was a real estate agent in Rock Hill, and both of them were married with children.

Final appeals

On August 30, 2024, Owens's lawyers appealed for the case to be reopened. They argued that there was new evidence concerning Steven Golden, the accomplice of Owens who pleaded guilty and turned state evidence against him. Although Golden's plea agreement did not carry the condition to take the death penalty or life imprisonment off the table, Golden signed an affidavit a day before the release of Owens's death warrant that he had an unwritten agreement with the state's prosecutors that he would testify against Owens should the death penalty and life sentence were both taken off the table, and Owens's lawyers argued that the credibility of Golden's testimony, which was the only evidence linking Owens as the shooter who killed Irene Graves, should be questioned and his conviction might not stand. According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Golden is tentatively scheduled to be released in 2026.

In another appeal, Owens's lawyers claimed that they were provided with inadequate information about the drugs used for lethal injection and it might hinder them from making the choice between lethal injection and firing squad (electrocution was not considered since Owens rejected this method). Starting with the impending execution of Owens, the prison authorities in South Carolina planned to make use of single doses of pentobarbital to execute prisoners instead of their original three-drug combination.

On September 12, 2024, the South Carolina Supreme Court rejected the appeals of Owens in relation to the drugs and alleged new evidence. The judges unanimously agreed that the new evidence regarding the supposed secret deal and Owens's argument that he was not a major participant in the robbery-murder were ought to be dismissed, because they were hardly compelling enough to call for a re-opening of his case and halt his execution. The judges stated that they believed that Owens was the killer based on the available evidence, and added that even if Owens did not pull the trigger, it did not change the fact that there was a common intention between Owens and Golden to commit the robbery, where Owens likely knew there was a grave risk of causing death and in furtherance of their intention to rob, Irene Graves died after being shot by the perpetrators.

While Owens was still appealing against his sentence, several anti-death penalty activists conducted a campaign to seek clemency from South Carolina's state Governor Henry McMaster. Under state law, the final recourse for Owens, who had already exhausted all his appeals, was to appeal for clemency from the governor of South Carolina, and if successful, his death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment. McMaster, who stated he "respects jury verdicts and court decisions", declined to reveal if he would offer clemency for Owens, although it was longtime tradition for the governor to make a phone call to prison officials minutes before the scheduled execution, informing them of the governor's decision on whether or not clemency will be allowed. At this point in time, since the 1976 resumption of capital punishment, none of the governors in South Carolina, including McMaster, had ever granted clemency to a death row inmate.

Hillary Taylor, Executive Director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, commented on Owens's case, stating that no one was beyond redemption and no one had the right to take a life. Taylor and other activists pointed out that Owens was African American and in South Carolina itself, a disproportionate number of African Americans were executed in the state, and that Owens was 19 when the murder of Graves happened, which were other factors raised by the group in favour of sparing Owens from execution. David Kennedy, a member of the NAACP, stated that no one should take a life and South Carolina had no right to do so, and only God can do it.

See also

• Capital punishment in South Carolina
• List of death row inmates in South Carolina
• List of people scheduled to be executed in the United States