South Carolina executed Marion Bowman Jr., the third inmate in four months, as the state resumes executions after a 13-year pause. Bowman maintained his innocence until his final moments.

South Carolina's Marion Bowman Jr. became first person executed in the United States in 2025 on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to hear his case.

Marion Bowman Jr. dies Jan. 31, becomes third man put to death since South Carolina resumed executions. He was convicted of killing young mother Kandee Martin.

South Carolina has put a third inmate to death in four months Friday as the state goes through a backlog of prisoners who exhausted their appeals while the state couldn’t find lethal injection drugs.

The state executed Bowman for the 2001 murder of 21-year-old Kandee Martin, a young mother who was killed five days before her son's second birthday.

Bowman is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. on Friday at a Columbia, South Carolina prison for the killing of 21-year-old Kandee Martin.

Lawyers for a South Carolina inmate set to die by lethal injection next week want his execution halted so they can get more information about the drug that will kill him.