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What to know about the execution of South Carolina

What to know about the execution of South Carolina

A man from South Carolina who will become the first inmate executed in the US. In 2025 he says that prosecutors condemned the wrong man, and that although he treated the victim’s drugs in the case, he did not kill her. The young woman’s family says she is a liar and have been “counting the minutes” until he dies.

South Carolina plans to execute Marion Bowman Jr. on Friday of February 16, 2001, death by shooting Kandee Martin, 21,who was killed five days before his son’s second birthday. The police found Martin’s bullet body in the trunk of his own car, which had been burned.

“I am very sorry for Kandee and his family, but I didn’t,” Bowman recently wrote in a statement Posted online. “His family has suffered a loss that cannot be undone … I know that this will not bring them satisfaction, but this is my truth.

“I just don’t want to be executed or imprisoned for life for a crime I did not commit,” he wrote.

Kandee Martin’s sister -in -law, Lisa Martin, told USA Today that her family expects the execution to bring a closure.

“He can do so many things that Kandee can’t do. He can talk to his family. I read that he had to hold a grandson … He has been 24 years to find God and can tie his loose ends,” Martin said. “We never had that opportunity. What was left of Kandee is in a coffin on the ground.”

This is what you need to know about execution.

What was condemned to Marion Bowman?

A jury condemned Bowman for killing Martin, whom Bowman described as a friend and sometimes a sexual couple who bought Crack cocaine. The prosecutors argued that Martin owed money to Bowman for drugs and quoted several witnesses who said they heard him curse for killing the young woman.

On February 17, 2001, the police found Martin’s body. They had shot him once on his chest and once in his head on a dark road. His murderer put his body in the trunk of his car and ignited the car in flames, as shown by the judicial records.

The day they killed her, Bowman, who was 20, said she sold Martin’s drugs several times during the day, but that she was later “buying on credit.” He said that the two had sex and then saw her drive in her car with her cousin, also a distributor.

That cousin became a star witness in the trial for Bowman’s murder as part of a guilt agreement with prosecutors for a reduced sentence. Bowman argues that the jury members never heard that their cousin had confessed to kill Martin to a cellmate and that prosecutors ignored the evidence he pointed to his cousin and the fault of another man.

“I have done some things in life, I regret,” Bowman wrote. “I regret the role I had when treating Kandee and I know that his addiction probably led him to death. But I didn’t do this.”

Who was Kandee Martin?

Daughter of a bar bar contractor and a mother who stays at home, Kandee grew up in the small city of Branchville in the rural area of ​​South Carolina, in the middle of Charleston and Columbia. The city had limited employment options and was so small, Martin remembers that his graduated high school had only 21 students.

Kandee wanted something else and often talked about arriving in Charleston and starting a race.

“She was a little girl girl whose dream was to leave the little town and do something about her life,” Martin said.

Before Kandee could leave Branchville, she was pregnant with a baby who was unexpected and a welcome blessing. “He went from being just a single young woman to be someone’s mother, and for her, that was the most great,” Martin said.

“When I close my eyes, I can still listen to those two laughing with each other,” Martin said.

When and where will Marion Bowman be executed?

The Bowman execution will occur at 6 pm on Friday, January 31 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina.

What execution method is being used?

Bowman will be killed by a lethal injection of Pentobarbital.

Bowman’s lawyers have been arguing that there is a “veil of secret” around the drug, saying in judicial documents that the State has refused to deliver basic details, such as the expiration date of the pentobarbital and how it is stored. They have also asked questions about the purity and quality of the drug after the South Carolina inmate was given a second dose. Richard Moore 11 minutes after its execution began in November.

In the judicial archives, the State argued that Bowman could have chosen a shots squad or an electric chair for its execution, but chose to die by lethal injection for Martin’s “horrible murder”.

Lindsey Vann, one of Bowman’s lawyers, said he chose lethal injection despite the unanswered questions because the shots squad and the electric chair are “barbaric and unconstitutional.” If Bowman had not chosen between the three, the predetermined method would have been the electric chair.

More about Marion Bowman

Bowman grew in a rural area in Orangeburg County, South Carolina, half of Charleston and Columbia.

He had an absent father and his mother got sick when Bowman was a teenager, making him the man in the house, Vann told the USA Today. “He is a really loyal person since his early years, and unfortunately, that led him to drug trafficking in the area,” he said.

“My family was poor, but we surpassed,” Bowman Recently wrote In his online testimony. “I did not finish high school. I worked in some manual jobs but I could never reach the end of the month.”

Then, Cocaine crack was sold again, at first to keep his mother and sister, and finally his wife and steps, Vann said.

After he was imprisoned, Bowman’s wife gave birth to the couple’s daughter, who has since had his own daughter and made Bowman a grandfather. It also has three grandchildren that you consider your own. Despite the circumstances, he says they are all close.

Vann said Bowman has matured while he was in prison, he developed a deep faith in God and became a writer, writing A poem Titled “While I breathe, I hope.” It reads, in part: “The doors continue to close, beating with a resounding explosion … With my missing hope, do I stop breathing? I’m still breathing, so I know this. While I breathe, I hope.”

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