South Carolina’s Longest-Serving Death Row Inmate Dies After 42 Years

Fred Singleton, 81, South Carolina’s longest-serving death row inmate, died of natural causes this week, officials said.

Singleton passed away Monday at the Kirkland Correctional Institution’s infirmary, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced Friday. He was sentenced to death in 1983 for raping and strangling a woman in Newberry County and stealing her jewelry, according to court records.

Legal Limbo

Singleton spent the last three decades of his life in legal limbo. The state Supreme Court ruled he was not competent to be executed because he did not understand he could die in the electric chair and could only respond to his attorneys with “yes” or “no,” according to The Associated Press.

However, in 1993, the justices decided to keep his death sentence in place in case future advances in psychology improved his mental state. They also ruled that Singleton could not be forced to take medication solely to make him competent for execution.

Crime Details

Prosecutors said Singleton broke into the home of 73-year-old widow Elizabeth Lominick in 1982. Her body was discovered by two sisters and a niece. She had been strangled with a bedsheet, and Singleton’s fingerprints were found on a bathroom window screen.

When arrested in Georgetown County, Singleton had Lominick’s diamond and gold rings in his pockets. Her car, found nearby, also bore his fingerprints.

Death Row and Firing Squad Executions

Following Singleton’s death, 24 men remain on South Carolina’s death row.

This year, the state has carried out two executions by firing squad. In March, 67-year-old Brad Sigmon, convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat in 2001, was executed—the first firing squad execution in the U.S. in 15 years.

The following month, Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed by firing squad for the 2004 killings of an off-duty police officer in Calhoun County, South Carolina, and a convenience store clerk in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He received the death penalty for the officer’s murder and a life sentence for the clerk’s murder.