At times, Freddie Eugene Owens' letters are incredibly vulnerable as he says he's "also human." At others they threaten violence and say "betrayers will be slayed"

Attorneys for Owens had filed an emergency motion with South Carolina's high court to reconsider stopping his death based on an affidavit filed by Owens' co-defendant, Steven Golden, stating that Owens did not shoot Graves during the robbery at the Speedway convenience store.

Owens is set to be executed by lethal injection in the state's first execution in 13 years. This despite a key witness who testified against Owens now proclaiming his innocence.

In South Carolina, which on Friday will execute its first inmate since 2011, 43 convicted murderers have been executed by the state since the death penalty was reinstated here in 1976. Few death row inmates have been acquitted in that time, but a substantial number have still managed to get off death row.

In South Carolina, the governor has the lone ability to grant clemency and reduce a death sentence to life in prison. However, no governor has done that in the state’s 43 executions since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976.

The Greenville man convicted of murder in 1999 will be the 44th person the state has put to death since 1976 and the first since May 2011

The South Carolina Department of Corrections could potentially execute one death row inmate every 35 days — or every five weeks — as the state resumes executions on Sept. 20 after a 13-year pause in carrying out the death penalty.

Freddie Owens is scheduled to be the first inmate in South Carolina to be executed since the state ran out of drugs used in lethal injections in 2011.

If it moves forward, it will be the state's first execution in 13 years and the 14th execution in the nation this year. It's also the first of five executions the United States is carrying out in a six-day period between Sept.