Witness Whose Testimony Put Man on Death Row Makes Bombshell Confession Days Before Lethal Injection
A witness who played a crucial role in convicting Freddie Owens, who is scheduled for execution in South Carolina, recently confessed that Owens was not present during the crime for which he was sentenced to death. The witness, Steven Golden, who was Owens’ co-defendant, stated in an affidavit that he was pressured by detectives to testify against Owens and was afraid for his life if he named the real shooter. Owens was convicted in 1999 for the murder of a store clerk, Irene Graves, but Golden now claims that his previous statements were coerced and inconsistent with the new revelation. Despite this last-minute confession and an emergency motion filed by Owens’ lawyers to halt the execution, the South Carolina Attorney General has dismissed Golden’s claims, maintaining that evidence supports Owens’ guilt. As the scheduled execution approaches, advocacy groups are rallying against the death penalty, and calls for clemency have been made to Governor Henry McMaster, who has yet to indicate he will intervene. The situation raises significant concerns about the reliability of witness testimony and the justice system’s handling of capital punishment cases.
A witness whose testimony was instrumental in putting a man on death row has made a bombshell confession days before the convicted man was scheduled for lethal injection.
On Wednesday, lawyers for Freddie Owens filed an emergency motion to halt his execution, scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday at a South Carolina prison.
Owens was convicted in a trial following the 1997 killing of Greenville store clerk Irene Graves.
In the motion, lawyers included a sworn statement from the witness saying Owens was not even present for the murder that resulted in his death sentence.
“The detectives told me they knew Freddie was with me when I robbed the Speedway,” Steven Golden, Owens’ co-defendant who testified that his friend pulled the trigger, wrote in the affidavit according to Greenville News.
“They told me I might as well make a statement against Freddie because he already told his side to everyone, and they were just trying to get my side of the story,” he continued.” I was scared that I would get the death penalty if I didn’t make a statement.
“I signed a waiver of rights form and then signed a statement on Nov. 11, 1997.”
Golden, who dodged the death penalty but was sentenced to 28 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter, said he was on cocaine while talking to police, pressured by law enforcement and also in fear of the “real” killer, according to the Associated Press.
“I thought the real shooter or his associates might kill me if I named him to police,” Golden said in the affidavit. “I am still afraid of that. But Freddie was not there.”
The eleventh hour confession may not be enough to save Owens’ life.
In a response to the filing, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson dismissed the claims made by Golden in the emergency motion according o he Greenville News.
“The filing for reconsideration shows only one point very clearly,” Wilson said, “that Golden has now made a sworn statement that is contrary to his multiple other sworn statements over 20 years, those prior statements being consistent with the other evidence that Owens was the shooter.”
South Carolina’s highest court has already refused to halt Owens’ execution after an earlier attempt by his lawyers and Golden to shake the conviction.
Gov. Henry McMaster, who also has the power to stay Owens’ execution, has been asked to grant the convict clemency. He has not hinted that he will spare the convicted murderer, however.
“That decision is one to be made [on Friday] and announced at that time, and that’s what I’ll do,” McMaster said last week.
State groups aligned against the death penalty, including South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, have protested Owens’ impending execution and have planned vigils for after his death.
Shortly after his 1999 conviction for Graves’ murder, Owens killed a fellow inmate in a torturous fashion, according to the Greenville Journal. The victim, Christopher Bryan Lee, was allegedly ribbing Owens about Graves’ killing during a 24-hour holding period immediately following the trial.
Owens knocked the man to the ground, where he rammed a ballpoint pen into his eye before stabbing it in the man’s throat. Owens then choked the man with a sheet, but failed to kill him. Lee’s head was slammed into the ground, and Owens began burning the victim’s eyes and hair with a cigarette lighter.
Owens later heard the shattered and broken man moaning from his cell. He returned to his victim and suffocated the man to death.
Friday’s execution, if allowed to continue, will end a tragic, decades-long saga.
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