South Carolina Scheduled To Execute Man Who Key Witness Says Is Innocent

Photo: South Carolina Department of Corrections South Carolina is scheduled to execute a death row inmate on Friday (Sept. 20) after a key witness recently said he lied during trial, PEOPLE reports. Freddie Owens, now 46, was 19 when he was found guilty of murdering store clerk Irene Graves during an armed robbery at a gas station in Greenville, South Carolina in 1997. Owens has long maintained his innocence, with his attorneys arguing that prosecutors haven’t presented any scientific evidence linking him to the crime. Just days before Owens’ scheduled execution, Steve Golden, who spent 28 years in prison for his role in the murder, admitted in a sworn statement that he lied to a South Carolina jury during the 1999 trial about Owens being the gunman. In the statement, Golden wrote that Owens didn’t kill Graves and wasn’t at the store on the night of the shooting. “Freddie Owens is not the person who shot Irene Graves at the Speedway on November 1, 1997,” Golden wrote in the sworn statement filed to the South Carolina Supreme Court this week. “Freddie was not present when I robbed the Speedway that day.” According to prosecutors, Golden and Owens’ ex-girlfriend previously gave...