Murder of Kandee Martin
Undated photo of Kandee Martin, who was murdered in 2001
Location	Dorchester County, South Carolina, United States
Date	February 16, 2001
Attack type	Arson and murder by shooting
Convicted	Marion Bowman Jr.
Verdict	Guilty
Convictions	Murder Third-degree arson
Sentence	Death – murder Ten years' imprisonment – third-degree arson

On February 16, 2001, in Dorchester County, South Carolina, 21-year-old Kandee Louise Martin^[a] (October 2, 1979 – February 16, 2001) was shot to death by a high school acquaintance, who stuffed her body inside the trunk and set fire to the car, burning her body as a result. The killer, Marion Bowman Jr. (born June 6, 1980), 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, is currently on death row awaiting his execution at Broad River Correctional Institution, with his execution date yet to be scheduled.^[1]

On February 17, 2001, the burnt body of 21-year-old Kandee Louise Martin was found inside the trunk of her burned car at Dorchester County, South Carolina.^[2]

The day before her body was discovered, which was February 16, 2001, Martin, who had a child, met up with a high school friend in relation to a monetary dispute. According to court sources, the high school friend, 20-year-old Marion Bowman Jr., was on the way to a pharmacy in Branchville with his sister when he encountered Martin and her group of friends. Bowman reportedly asked his sister to stop the car as he wanted to talk to Martin. According to Bowman's sister, her brother purportedly asked Martin to return him some money and when Martin did not reply, Bowman said that she would "be dead by dark."^[2][3]

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.^[3][2]

After murdering Martin, Bowman threatened Gadson to not tell anyone he killed Martin, and later drove Martin's car back to town. He would later attempt to sell the car but failed to, but 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.^[2][3]

Later, on the morning of February 17, 2001, firefighters responded to the site of the burning car and put out the fire, and in turn, the body of Martin was found. On that same day in the afternoon, the police managed to link Bowman to the murder and arrested him as a suspect, after vaginal swabs found the DNA of Bowman.^[3][2]

Marion Bowman Jr.
2024 mugshot of Marion Bowman Jr.
Born	(1980-06-06) June 6, 1980 (age 44) South Carolina, U.S.
Criminal status	Incarcerated on death row
Conviction(s)	Murder Third-degree arson
Criminal penalty	Death (murder) Ten years' imprisonment (arson)
Details
Victims	Kandee Louise Martin
Date	February 17, 2001
Country	United States
State(s)	South Carolina
Imprisoned at	Broad River Correctional Institution

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 offence of murder carries the death penalty under South Carolina state law.^[4]

On May 17, 2002, Bowman was officially put on trial before a St. George jury for both charges of arson and murder. Bowman was represented by Norbert Cummings Jr. and Marva Hardee-Thomas during the trial, and during the procedure, the defence 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.^[2]

On May 24, 2002, after three hours of deliberation, Bowman was found guilty of murder and arson on both counts by the jury. The defence 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 offences.^[2][4]

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.^[4][5]

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,^[4] while Gadson was sentenced to 20 years in jail for both misprision of a felony and accessory after the fact of murder.^[2]

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.^[2][6][7]

On January 10, 2018, the South Carolina Supreme Court dismissed another appeal from Bowman.^[8]

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.^[4]

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.^[9]

As of 2022, Bowman was one of at least 35 men who remained incarcerated on death row in South Carolina.^[10] 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.^[11][12]

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 took up his case and aside from mounting efforts to seek clemency for him, the group also recorded an interview of Bowman in prison with hopes to raise awareness of his story and case.^[13][14]

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.^[15][16]

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.^[17][18]

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.^[19]

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 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.^[20] 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.^[21][22]

At that point in time, there was an unofficial moratorium on executions in South Carolina since the state's last execution in 2011 due to the absence 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.^[23] This problem prompted the state government to reintroduce the electric chair and passed new legislation of firing squad executions as the alternative execution methods in case the option of lethal injection was unavailable.^[24] Eventually, the state successfully procured new drugs in September 2023 to restart executions by lethal injection.^[25]

On July 31, 2024, a five-judge panel of the South Carolina Supreme Court delivered their final verdict, upholding the constitutionality of both the electric chair and firing squad, 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 re-starting executions in South Carolina for all the 32 inmates on the state's death row, including Bowman.^[26][27][28] 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.^[29][30]

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.^[31] Owens's execution was followed by that of Richard Moore on November 1, 2024.^[32]

After the loss of his legal motion in 2024, Marion Bowman Jr. remains on death row for murdering Kandee Martin as of 2024.

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,^[33] with each execution carried out five weeks apart from each other.^[34]

The other five inmates named on the list were Freddie Eugene Owens, Richard Bernard Moore, Brad Sigmon, Steven Bixby, and Mikal Mahdi.^[35] 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.^[36][37]

After the executions of Owens and Moore, Bowman was expected to be the next condemned prisoner to be executed, since his death sentence was imposed in 2002. Given that Moore was put to death on November 1, 2024, it was speculated that Bowman would be executed five weeks later on December 6, 2024, and a death warrant would be issued on November 8, 2024, which was a Friday and the state often issued death warrants regularly on a Friday. However, the execution date was not set on that date itself.^[38]

On November 11, 2024, it was reported that Bowman and the remaining three condemned inmates on the execution schedule list had filed an appeal, asking the state to not execute them during the winter holiday period, and hold off their executions until after Christmas and New Year's Day. Although the state rebutted in court that it was not new for the state to execute condemned inmates during winter holidays, including five between December 4, 1998 and January 8, 1999,^[39] the defence lawyers submitted a statement in court:

"Six consecutive executions with virtually no respite will take a substantial toll on all involved, particularly during a time of year that is so important to families."^[40]

On November 14, 2024, the South Carolina Supreme Court granted the inmates a temporary respite, agreeing to not authorise any new death warrants until at least January 3, 2025.^[41][42]

With this arrangement, Bowman and the other three prisoners in line for execution had their potential execution dates pushed back to 2025. Since Bowman's death sentence was imposed earliest of the four prisoners, his earliest tentative execution date is expected to be January 31, 2025 should the state Supreme Court sign his death warrant on January 3, 2025. By rule, the execution warrant is 28 days, with the next warrant signed seven days after an execution.^[43][44]

On December 17, 2024, while his death warrant was still pending before the courts, Marion Bowman Jr. appealed to vacate his conviction on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct.

Bowman claimed that he did not get a fair trial due to the prosecution failing to disclose certain key evidence during his trial, including the psychological problems and a possible confession from one trial witness, and criminal charges that were hanging over another trial witness, and it hindered Bowman's entitlement to a fair and impartial trial and effectively raised doubts over the validity of his conviction and sentence. It was also alleged that Bowman's trial lawyers were overtly sympathetic towards the victim, Kandee Martin, who was a White victim while they did not adequately defend Bowman, who was African-American and that racism played a part in his conviction, which Bowman's lawyers sought to overturn in favour of a new hearing.^[45]

Apart from his arguments over an unfair trial, Bowman also asked for his death sentence to be downgraded to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Bowman's counsel presented sworn statements from several former nurses and death row staff members, who described him as a gentle giant with a special ability to assist inmates with mental health issues in working with psychologists and adhering to their medication. Additionally, Bowman served for many years as the official liaison between death row inmates and prison authorities.^[46]

In a public statement on January 2, 2025, Bowman stated that he had sexual relations with Martin and also sold drugs to her, but he continued to claim he never killed her.^[47]

• Capital punishment in South Carolina
• List of death row inmates in South Carolina
• List of people scheduled to be executed in the United States