As lethal injection looms for South Carolina death row inmate Freddie Owens, a co-defendant recently admitted lying about the 1997 murder case.
On Wednesday, a lawyer for Owens, who is on death row for the 1997 murder of a convenience store worker in Greenville, South Carolina, filed a sworn statement in court detailing how his co-defendant, Steven Golden, admitted to lying about the crime to save himself.
The filing by the lawyer comes just a few days before Owens is scheduled for execution at 6 p.m. on Friday at a Columbia prison.
Prosecutors emphasized that multiple witnesses testified Owens admitted to pulling the trigger. Last week, the state Supreme Court denied a request to halt Owens’ execution after Golden, in a sworn statement, claimed he had a secret agreement with prosecutors that was never disclosed to the jury.
Additionally, Golden filed another sworn statement detailing that Owens was not at the convenience store at the time that Irene Graves was killed in 1997, during a robbery. Golden said he falsely blamed Owens because he was high on cocaine and felt pressured by police, who told him they already knew he and Owens were together and that Owens was cooperating. He also admitted he was afraid of the actual killer.
“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,” Golden wrote in his sworn statement to the court.
In this handout photo provided by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, San Quentin’s death lethal injection facility is shown before being dismantled at San Quentin State Prison on March 13, 2019 in San Quentin, California. On September 19, 2024, a co-defendant admitted to lying about a 1997 murder case as Freddie Owens awaits lethal injection in South Carolina.
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via Getty Images/Getty Images
In his statement, Golden did not identify the name of the other person he referred to as the killer.
At Owens’ trial, Golden testified that prosecutors had agreed to take his cooperation into account, though he still faced either the death penalty or life in prison. Court records show he later pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 28 years.
“I’m coming forward now because I know Freddie’s execution date is September 20 and I don’t want Freddie to be executed for something he didn’t do. This has weighed heavily on my mind and I want to have a clear conscience,” Golden’s sworn statement said.
Prosecutors argued that Golden wasn’t the sole link tying Owens to the crime. Several of Owens’ friends testified that they had planned the store robbery with him and that Owens later bragged about killing the clerk. His ex-girlfriend also took the stand, stating that Owens had confessed the murder to her.
“There is no indication that Golden will testify; there is no reasoning to why Owens would admit the shooting (of) Ms. Graves to officers, his girlfriend, and his mother if he was not the shooter as now claimed,” the state Attorney General’s Office wrote in court filings.
On Thursday, the group South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty delivered a petition with over 10,000 signatures to Governor Henry McMaster’s office, urging him to commute Owens’ sentence to life imprisonment.
McMaster will make a decision on clemency for Owens just moments before the planned execution.
This article includes reporting from the Associated Press.
