On February 16, 2001, in Dorchester County, South Carolina, United States, 21-year-old Kandee Louise Martin (October 2, 1979 – February 16, 2001) was shot to death by a high school acquaintance, who stuffed her body inside the trunk of her car and set fire to the vehicle, burning her body as a result. The killer, Marion Bowman Jr., was arrested and charged with murder and arson.
Bowman, who killed Martin over a monetary dispute, was found guilty of both counts, and sentenced to death for the charge of murdering Martin, while receiving a ten-year jail term for the other charge of third-degree arson. Bowman, who had since lost his appeals against the death penalty, was incarcerated on death row awaiting his execution at Broad River Correctional Institution, where he was eventually executed by lethal injection on January 31, 2025.
Murder On February 17, 2001, the burnt body of 21-year-old Kandee Louise Martin was found inside the trunk of her burned car in Dorchester County, South Carolina.State v. Bowman , South Carolina Supreme Court (United States).
The day before, according to court sources, 20-year-old Marion Bowman Jr., a longtime resident of Branchville, South Carolina, was with his sister when he encountered Martin and her group of friends. Bowman had been released from both prison and a boot camp program after serving a two-year jail sentence and a 30-day term for two counts of third-degree burglary and petty larceny in the late-1990s. Bowman reportedly asked his sister to stop the car as he wanted to talk to Martin, whom he knew from high school. According to Bowman's sister, he asked Martin to return some money to him, and when Martin told him to wait until her conversation was finished, Bowman said that "that bitch be dead by dark."
That evening, Martin drove up to a house where Bowman and his friends had been drinking. Bowman and his cousin James Tywan Gadson boarded her car, and they went together to a remote place pointed out by Bowman. According to Gadson, he heard Bowman telling him that he wanted to kill Martin as they got out of the car, and while tailing behind Martin, Bowman whipped out a gun and fired three shots. Martin reportedly rushed forward to face Bowman and pleaded with him to spare her life as she had a child to take care of. Disregarding Martin's pleas for mercy, Bowman discharged his firearm twice, and shot Martin to death. He then proceeded to drag her body into the surrounding woods.
After murdering Martin, Bowman threatened Gadson to not tell anyone he killed Martin – notwithstanding the fact that he had bragged about the killing to others (including Hiram Johnson) – and later drove Martin's car back to town. He would later attempt to sell the car at the club, but failed to, and drove the car around with other people for the evening. After this, Bowman enlisted the help of another friend, Travis Felder, to drive the car back to the murder site. After parking the car, Bowman brought the body of Martin out from a nearby forest, and shoved it inside the trunk, before he set fire to the car. While burning the car, Bowman told Felder that he murdered Martin. After this, both men fled the scene.
Trial of Marion Bowman Jr.
In June 2001, Marion Bowman Jr. was officially indicted by a grand jury for one count of murder and one count of third-degree arson. The offense of murder carries the death penalty under South Carolina state law.
On May 17, 2002, Bowman was officially put on trial before a St. George (in Dorchester County) jury for both charges of arson and murder. The prosecution was led by Walter Bailey, the First Circuit Solicitor. Bowman was represented by Norbert Cummings Jr. and Marva Hardee-Thomas during the trial, and during the procedure, the defense argued that the testimony of Gadson should not be trusted since he and the others involved in the case had taken plea deal agreements and he had a motivation for pinpointing Bowman as the shooter, and also argued that the gun may have been planted by investigators to further incriminate Bowman as the killer.
On May 24, 2002, after three hours of deliberation, Bowman was found guilty of murder and arson on both counts by the jury. The defense sought life imprisonment for Bowman, citing mitigation evidence that Bowman grew up in a dysfunctional family background with his mother's family having a history of severe alcoholism, and Bowman himself began abusing alcohol at age ten and even trafficked drugs at age 14. However, the prosecution sought the death penalty in relation to the aggravating circumstances and grave nature of the offenses.
On the same day of his conviction, Bowman was sentenced to death after the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty with respect to the murder charge. Bowman was also sentenced to ten years in prison for the other charge of third-degree arson.
Both Travis Felder and James Gadson were also dealt in court with lesser charges in relation to Martin's murder after they both reached plea deal agreements with the prosecution. Felder was sentenced to three years imprisonment suspended to three years probation for accessory after the fact of murder,Bowman v. Stirling , U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina (United States). while Gadson was sentenced to 20 years in jail for both misprision of felony and accessory after the fact of murder.
Appeal process After he was sentenced to death, Marion Bowman Jr. appealed to the South Carolina Supreme Court against his death sentence. On November 28, 2005, Bowman's direct appeal was dismissed by the South Carolina Supreme Court.
On January 10, 2018, the South Carolina Supreme Court dismissed another appeal from Bowman.Bowman v. State , South Carolina Supreme Court (United States).
On March 26, 2020, U.S. District Judge Terry L. Wooten of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina turned down Bowman's appeal and upheld both his conviction and sentence. In the appeal, Bowman earlier argued that he was innocent and that his conviction was due to ineffective counsel, who failed to rebut the testimony of Gadson, who made a plea deal before making the testimony and threatened with the death penalty, and as a result, the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were violated. In fact, Gadson had reportedly given inconsistent testimonies and it was alleged that one of the trial witnesses had confessed to being the real killer but not Bowman. These arguments were ultimately rejected.
On August 16, 2022, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bowman's appeal against the death penalty. Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the final appeal of Bowman and finalized his death sentence.Bowman v. Stirling , 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (United States).
As of 2022, Bowman was one of at least 35 men who remained incarcerated on death row in South Carolina. The number eventually fell to 32 after the commutation of serial killer Quincy Allen's death sentence to life imprisonment and two others who either had their sentences commuted or died of natural causes while on death row.
Other legal issues Lawsuit for lifting of media ban During his time on death row, the case of Marion Bowman Jr. garnered attention from anti-death penalty groups and civil groups. One of them, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), had taken up his case and aside from mounting efforts to seek clemency for him, the group also conducted an interview of Bowman in prison, hoping to raise awareness about his story and case.
However, in accordance with South Carolina prison policies, prisoners were not allowed to speak to the media (including in-person media interviews) or have their writings directly published, so as to prevent the potential leakage of confidential information or security breaches of the system. Due to this, the ACLU's interview video of Bowman was not allowed for broadcast in the media. For this issue, the ACLU filed a petition to the federal courts, seeking to lift the ban on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment free speech rights of prisoners, and potentially shielded the South Carolina Department of Corrections from real public accountability over possible cases of mistreatment of prisoners.
On September 5, 2024, the U.S. District Judge Jacquelyn D. Austin dismissed the lawsuit. The judge upheld that the state reserved the right to forbid the media's access to information that should not be made public and the media did not have special access to these sources.
On November 12, 2024, the ACLU filed an appeal to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and it is currently processed by a three-judge panel.
Lawsuit against state capital punishment laws In 2023, Bowman was one of the several death row inmates who sued the state of South Carolina against its capital punishment laws, seeking to prohibit the use of the firing squad and electric chair on the grounds that they were cruel and unusual punishments and would cause unnecessary pain and suffering to the condemned, which made these execution methods unconstitutional.Owens v. Stirling , South Carolina Supreme Court (United States). The state's legal representatives, however, responded that both the electric chair and firing squad fit the existing protocols and it was not necessitated in law that death had to be instantaneous or painless.
At that time, there was an unofficial moratorium on executions in South Carolina since the state's last execution in 2011 due to the scarcity of lethal injection drugs, in addition to the expiration of the state's existing drug supplies and various drug companies' refusal to sell their drugs to the state for executions. This problem prompted the state government to reintroduce the electric chair and pass new legislation designating firing squad executions as the alternative execution methods in case the option of lethal injection was unavailable. Eventually, the state successfully procured new drugs in September 2023 to restart executions by lethal injection.
On July 31, 2024, a five-judge panel of the South Carolina Supreme Court delivered its final verdict upholding the constitutionality of both the electric chair and firing squad, with a majority of the judges approving the two methods: three for firing squad and four for the electric chair. This decision allowed the possibility of resuming executions in South Carolina for all 32 inmates on the state's death row, including Bowman. At the time of this ruling, five condemned inmates – consisting of Bowman, Freddie Eugene Owens, Richard Bernard Moore, Brad Sigmon and Mikal Mahdi – had exhausted all avenues of appeal and they were the most likely inmates in line for imminent execution on a later date.
Eventually, the 13-year moratorium in South Carolina was lifted after one of the five inmates, Freddie Owens, was put to death on September 20, 2024. Owens's execution was followed by that of Richard Moore on November 1, 2024.
Scheduling of execution date After the loss of his legal motion in 2024, Marion Bowman Jr. remained on death row for murdering Kandee Martin until his execution in 2025.
On August 28, 2024, a court order was issued to allow the state to carry out a total of six executions over the following year, with each execution carried out five weeks apart from each other.
The other five inmates named on the list were Freddie Eugene Owens, Richard Bernard Moore, Brad Sigmon, Steven Bixby, and Mikal Mahdi. Owens and Moore – sentenced in 1999 and 2001 respectively – were the first two out of the six to be executed on September 20 and November 1, 2024, respectively.