Freddie Owens dies by lethal injection as the first death row inmate in South Carolina to die in 13 years

South Carolina applied lethal injection to Freddie Owens, convicted of murder in 1997, in the first execution in that state in 13 years.

Owens, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:55 pm local time. No final statement was made, local authorities said. The last death row inmate executed in South Carolina before Owens was Jeffrey Motts, 36, on May 6, 2011.

The execution came after the South Carolina Supreme Court refused to halt his execution on Thursday. Gov. Henry McMaster also decided not to grant clemency requested by Owens.

Owens' lawyers, in a final attempt to save his life, sought a stay of execution before the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, hours before his execution, but the high court denied the request.

Owens had been sentenced to death in 1999 for killing Irene Graves, a convenience store clerk, during a robbery in Greenville, South Carolina, when he was 19. The event occurred on Halloween night in 1997.

According to the case reconstruction, he and another man stole about $37 from a cash register and shot Graves in the head when she failed to open a safe.

Owens' lawyers lamented the execution of their now-deceased client, claiming he was wrongfully imprisoned because he allegedly did not commit the murder.

"Freddie Owens did not kill Ms. Graves. (His) childhood was marked by suffering on a scale that is hard to comprehend," attorney Gerald "Bo" King said in a statement sent to CNN. "He spent his adulthood in prison for a crime that he did not commit. The legal errors, hidden deals, and false evidence that made tonight possible should shame us all."

This year in the United States there have already been 14 executions, spread across the states of Alabama, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Four more executions are scheduled for next week.