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.

South Carolina is preparing to execute the third inmate to be put to death since September as the state goes through a backlog of prisoners who exhausted their appeals while the state couldn’t find lethal injection drugs.

Bowman’s execution was the third carried out in South Carolina since 2011, when the state unofficially halted executions as pharmaceutical companies stopped supplying lethal injection drugs, fearing public concern over suffering of those executed.

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 45 inmates to death since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, it was carrying out an average of three executions a year. Nine states have put more inmates to death.

Marion Bowman Jr., a 44-year-old inmate, is scheduled to be executed Friday night, marking the first execution in South Carolina this year. Bowman, a native of

On Friday, Jan. 31, the state of South Carolina executed Marion Bowman by lethal injection for the 2001 shooting death of Kandee Martin in Dorchester County. Bowman maintained his innocence for the entirety of his stay on death row until he died. In contrast, Martin’s family spoke out, saying he was a liar.

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. is set to be the first person executed this year on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to hear his case.