COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina inmate who spent 42 years on death row died of natural causes at a prison hospital, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Fred Singleton, 81, was sentenced to death in 1983 for raping and strangling a woman in Newberry County and stealing her jewelry, according to court records. He was the longest serving inmate on death row in the state.
Singleton spent his last three decades in prison in legal limbo after the state Supreme Court ruled that he was not competent to be executed because he did not understand that he could die in the electric chair and only answered his attorneys’ questions with “yes” or “no.”
But the justices also decided in 1993 that Singleton’s death sentence should be upheld if advances in psychology allowed him to improve and that he could not be forced to take medication to improve his mental state just so he could be executed.
Prosecutors said Singleton broke into the home of widow Elizabeth Lominick, 73, in 1982. Two of her sisters and her niece found her body. They had strangled her with a sheet. Singleton’s fingerprints were found on a bathroom window screen.
When Singleton was arrested in Georgetown County, he had Lominick’s gold and diamond rings in his pockets and his car, with Singleton’s fingerprints on it, was found nearby, police said.
Singleton’s death leaves 24 men on death row in South Carolina. At the end of 2014, the state had 48 death row inmates.
South Carolina has executed six inmates since then, all in 2024 or 2025. The other death row inmates either had their sentences overturned and were resentenced or died of natural causes.
The longest-serving inmate on death row is Jamie Wilson, 56, who has been there for 34 years.
Wilson killed two 8-year-old girls and wounded several other teachers and students in a 1988 shooting at a Greenwood County elementary school.
Wilson finds himself in a similar legal limbo as Singleton. Wilson was considered mentally ill at the time of his trial. He had a competency hearing in 2011, but the judge apparently has not ruled on his case.