South Carolina convict inches closer to first US death by firing squad in 15 years
A South Carolina death row inmate is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on Friday – the first execution of its kind in U.S. in 15 years. CREDIT: Associated Press
An 81-year-old inmate who was the "longest serving resident of South Carolina's Death Row" died of natural causes this week, officials said.
Fred Singleton passed away Monday at the Kirkland Correctional Institution’s infirmary, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced on Friday. He was sentenced to die in 1983 for raping and strangling a woman in Newberry County and stealing her jewelry, according to court records.
Singleton spent his last three decades in prison in legal limbo after the state Supreme Court ruled he wasn't competent to be executed because he didn't understand he could die in the electric chair and only answered questions from his attorneys with "yes" or "no," according to The Associated Press.
However, the justices also decided in 1993 that Singleton's death sentence should remain in case advances in psychology allowed him to get better and that he couldn't be forced to take medication to improve his mental state only so he could be executed, the AP added.
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Fred Singleton, center, died on Monday at the Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C., the state's Department of Corrections said. (Gavin McIntyre/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images; South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)
Prosecutors said Singleton broke into the home of 73-year-old widow Elizabeth Lominick in 1982. Two of her sisters and her niece found her body. She had been strangled with a bedsheet and Singleton's fingerprints were found on the screen of a bathroom window.
When Singleton was arrested in Georgetown County, he had Lominick's diamond and gold rings in his pockets, and her car was found nearby with Singleton's fingerprints inside, police said.
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Brad Sigmon was convicted of beating to death his estranged girlfriend’s parents in Greenville County in 2001. He was executed by firing squad in South Carolina earlier this year. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)
There are now 24 men remaining on South Carolina’s death row after Singleton's death.
There have been two firing squad executions in South Carolina this year.
In early March, Brad Sigmon, a 67-year-old who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents with a baseball bat in 2001, was executed by firing squad for the first time in 15 years in the U.S.
A South Carolina Department of Corrections officer sits inside a control room at Kirkland Correctional Institution on March 14, 2019, in Columbia, S.C. (Tribune News Service/Getty Images)
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The following month, Mikal Mahdi, 42, was put to death by the same method. He was convicted in the 2004 killings of an off-duty police officer in Calhoun County in South Carolina and a convenience store clerk in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was sentenced to death for the murder of the officer and to life in prison for the clerk's murder.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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