South Carolina puts inmate Marion Bowman Jr. to death in state’s third execution since September

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina put a third inmate to death in four months Friday as it goes through a backlog of prisoners who exhausted their appeals while the state couldn’t find lethal injection drugs.

Marion Bowman Jr. was executed at 6:27 p.m. Bowman, 44, was convicted of murder in the shooting death of a friend whose burned body was found in the trunk of a car.

Bowman maintained his innocence since his arrest and started his final statement with “I did not kill Kandee Martin.”

His lawyers said he was convicted on the word of several friends and relatives who received deals or had charges dropped by prosecutors in exchange for their testimony.

When the curtain to the death chamber opened, Bowman briefly looked at his attorney on the other side of the glass in the witness room, then looked back at the ceiling and closed his eyes. He opened his eyes once or twice as he gazed up.

Once his attorney finished reading Bowman’s three-minute final statement and poem, his breaths became heavy and he puffed his lips as he exhaled. In less than a minute, those breaths ceased. Twenty minutes later, a doctor with a stethoscope listened to his chest and placed a hand on his neck. She lightly patted him as she finished.

In his final statement, Bowman said death row inmates might be labeled the worst of the worst, but they have all grown and changed from what “they were when they had their moment that cost them everything.”

“I know that Kandee’s family is in pain, they are justifiably angry,” Bowman said. “If my death brings them some relief and ability to focus on the good times and funny stories, then I guess it will have served a purpose. I hope they find peace.”

Bowman’s final meal consisted of fried seafood, including shrimp, fish and oysters, chicken wings and tenders, onion rings, banana pudding, German chocolate cake, cranberry juice and pineapple juice.

Bowman, who has been on death row more than half his life, was offered a plea deal for a life sentence but went to trial because he said he was not guilty.

Friday’s execution was the third in South Carolina since September as the state ended a 13-year pause in executions caused in part because officials couldn’t obtain lethal injection drugs. The General Assembly passed a shield law, and prison officials were able to find a compounding pharmacy willing to make the pentobarbital if its identity wasn’t made public.

Bowman’s death marks the first execution in the U.S. in 2025. Twenty-five executions were carried out in the country last year.

Bowman did not ask Gov. Henry McMaster for clemency. But McMaster’s office released a letter denying clemency, saying he received informal requests and petitions to spare Bowman’s life.

Bowman’s lawyer, Lindsey Vann, said he didn’t want to spend more decades in prison for a crime he did not commit.

“After more than two decades of battling a broken system that has failed him at every turn, Marion’s decision is a powerful refusal to legitimize an unjust process that has already stolen so much of his life,” Vann said in a statement Thursday.

No governor in the previous 45 executions in South Carolina since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976 has given mercy and reduced a death sentence to life in prison without parole.

Bowman was convicted in Dorchester County in 2002 of murder in the killing of 21-year-old Kandee Martin in 2001. A number of friends and family members testified against him as part of plea deals.

One friend said Bowman was angry because Martin owed him money. A second testified Bowman thought Martin was wearing a recording device to get him arrested on a charge.

Bowman said he sold drugs to Martin, who was a friend of his for years and sometimes she would pay with sex, but he denied killing her.

Bowman is Black like the other two inmates executed since the pause ended. The final appeal from his lawyers said his trial attorney had too much sympathy for his white victim. The South Carolina Supreme Court called the argument meritless.

One other concern raised by Bowman’s lawyers was his weight. An anesthesiologist said he feared South Carolina’s secret lethal injection protocols didn’t take into account Bowman’s heavy weight, listed as 389 pounds (176 kilograms) in prison records. It can be difficult to properly get an IV into a blood vessel and determine the dose of the drugs needed in people with obesity.

Before the 13-year pause, South Carolina was among the busiest states for executions.

The state Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions in July. Freddie Owens was put to death by lethal injection Sept. 20, and Richard Moore was executed on Nov. 1.

The court will allow an execution every five weeks until the other three inmates who have run out of appeals are put to death.

South Carolina has put 45 inmates to death since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, it was carrying out an average of three executions a year. Nine states have put more inmates to death.

But since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina’s death row population has dwindled. The state had 63 condemned inmates in early 2011. It currently has 30. About 20 inmates have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.