Columbia, South Carolina — COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina inmate who spent 42 years on death row has 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 Newberry County woman and stealing her jewelry, according to court records. It was the state Longest serving prisoner On those sentenced to death.
Singleton spent the last three decades of his life in prison in legal limbo after the state Supreme Court ruled that he was incompetent to be executed because he did not understand that he could die in the electric chair and only answered his attorney’s questions with “yes” or “no.”
But so do judges Decided in 1993 That Singleton’s death sentence should stand if advances in psychology allowed him to improve and that he could not be forced to take medication to improve his mental condition just so he could be executed.
Prosecutors said Singleton broke into the home of 73-year-old widow Elizabeth Lomenick in 1982. Two of her sisters and a niece found her body. She had been strangled with a bed sheet. Singleton’s fingerprints were found on the bathroom window screen.
When Singleton was arrested in Georgetown County, he had Lumenick’s diamond and gold rings in his pockets, and her car bearing Singleton’s fingerprints was found nearby, police said.
Singleton’s death leaves 24 men On death row in South Carolina. The state had 48 inmates on death row at the end of 2014.
South Carolina has Six prisoners were executed Since then, all in 2024 or 2025. Others on death row have had their sentences overturned, re-sentenced, or died of natural causes.
The longest serving prisoner on death row is now Jimmy Wilson, 56, who has been there for 34 years.
Wilson killed two 8-year-old girls and injured several teachers and other students in a 1988 shooting at a Greenwood County elementary school.
Wilson is in a similar legal bind as Singleton. Wilson was considered mentally ill at the time of his trial. A hearing was held on him in 2011, but the judge apparently did not issue a ruling in his case.