Two days before the first execution in South Carolina in more than a decade, a key witness in the case against a man sentenced to death has recanted his testimony.
In 1999, Steven Golden told a Greenville jury that he and Freddie Owens robbed a gas station on Speedway in the early morning hours of Nov. 1, 1997. When the clerk, Irene Graves, refused to open the safe, Owens shot the mother of three in the head, Golden told the court at the time.
Nearly 30 years later, he says that was a lie.
“Freddie Owens is not the one who shot Irene Graves at the Speedway on November 1, 1997. Freddie was not with me when I robbed the Speedway that day,” Golden wrote in a sworn statement filed by Owens’ attorneys with the South Carolina Supreme Court as part of a renewed effort to convince the court to halt Owens’ execution.
Now the South Carolina Supreme Court will have to consider the revelation and decide whether to stay Owens’ execution, which was scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday by lethal injection. Last week, the Supreme Court refused to halt Owens’ execution after his attorneys claimed errors in his original trial.
As the only eyewitness to Graves’ murder, Golden was a central witness in Owens’ trial. Owens—who later confessed to killing a cellmate—maintained his innocence in Graves’ murder, and no forensic evidence linked him to the crime. CCTV footage from the gas station showed two men, one wearing a ski mask, the other identified as Golden, with a stocking over his head.
But recent revelations about his testimony have been crucial to Owens’ lawyers’ efforts to stop the impending execution. In a sworn statement filed in August, Golden said that prosecutors offered him a secret deal in 1999 that they would not seek the death penalty if he agreed to testify against Owens.
Golden said in his statement Wednesday that he had used cocaine shortly before his arrest on Nov. 11, 1997.
“The detectives told me they knew Freddie was with me when I robbed the Speedway,” Golden wrote. “They said I might as well give a statement against Freddie because he had already told his side of the story to everyone and they only wanted to hear mine. I was afraid I would get the death penalty if I didn’t give a statement. I signed a waiver and on November 11, 1997, I signed a statement.”
Golden, who was just 18 at the time, said he felt pressured to sign the statement even though he knew it wasn’t true.
“In that statement, I replaced Freddie with the person who was actually with me that night at the Speedway. I did that because I knew that’s what the police wanted me to say, and also because I thought that the real shooter or his accomplices would kill me if I gave his name to the police. I still fear that. But Freddie wasn’t really there.”
Golden did not name who he believes actually shot Graves.
While on trial for murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, Golden said prosecutors offered him a deal to testify that the statement he had signed for police was true. Although Golden testified on the stand that prosecutors had not offered him a deal, it was a lie, he said.
“I am coming forward now because I know Freddie’s execution date is September 20th and I do not want Freddie executed for something he did not do,” Golden wrote. “This has weighed heavily on my mind and I want to have a clear conscience.”
It is unknown whether the courts will find Golden’s testimony credible. In an earlier ruling denying a stay of execution, the five-judge Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was proportionate because of the strength of the evidence against Owens. In addition to Golden’s testimony, the court cited testimony from Owens’ then-girlfriend and Nakeo Vance, who drove the getaway car. Vance testified that Owens told him he had shot Graves and then asked him to throw away the gun.
In a separate appeal, Owens’ attorneys also asked the U.S. District Court in Columbia to stay his execution, citing a lack of information about the drugs the South Carolina Department of Corrections plans to use.
