COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Just days before inmate Freddie Owens is set to die by lethal injection in South Carolina, the friend whose testimony helped send Owens to prison is saying he lied to save himself from the death chamber.

A man is set to be executed in South Carolina for the first time in more than a decade. Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, will die by lethal injection around 6 p.m. Friday. The only thing that can stop his execution is a call from Governor Henry McMaster.

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.

South Carolina is set to execute its first inmate in 13 years after an unintended pause because the state could not obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections.

South Carolina is set to execute its first inmate in 13 years after an unintended pause because the state could not obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections.

A South Carolina man scheduled to be executed on Friday was never at the crime scene, according to a key witness, who said he lied on the stand.

Earlier this month, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for Freddie Owens and kept him on the docket to be the first individual executed in the state in 13 years. This week, attorneys for the 46-year-old Owens,

Freddie Owens' execution is set for Friday at 6pm at a Columbia prison for the killing of a Greenville convenience store clerk in 1997 after the SC Supreme Court refused to stop it

Just days before inmate Freddie Owens is set to die by lethal injection in South Carolina, the friend whose testimony helped send Owens to prison is saying he lied to save himself from the death chamber.