She was a young SC mother of 3 when she was murdered. Her killer will be executed soon

Irene Grainger Graves worked three jobs to provide for her kids — dance lessons, cheerleading, whatever they were interested in doing.

Kmart, Bi-Lo and Speedway.

Irene’s mother thought she worked too hard. Maybe she should go on welfare.

But Graves persisted. She was working overnight at Speedway in Mauldin on Halloween in 1997 when two men came in, ordered her to open the safe and shot her in the head when she couldn’t.

The convicted shooter was Freddie Owens, a 19-year-old Greenville resident with a rough childhood, who moved between abusive family members and foster care, according to court records.

Owens, now 46, is scheduled to die for the crime by lethal injection Friday, the first execution in South Carolina since 2011. The killing at the Speedway was the last stop in a night of crime.

The family

The George and Ira Grainger family of Mullins, South Carolina, was a big one — nine children.

Irene was born April 6, 1956 and graduated from Mullins High School. She attended Winthrop for two years, her obituary said. Most of her family members still live in the Pee Dee.

Information on how she ended up in Greenville County could not be determined. Several family members declined to be interviewed for this story. At some point, she married and then divorced and was raising three children on her own.

Court testimony shows she told her mother, Ira Grainger, “I never want the children to feel because they have a single parent they were denied anything.”

She was a regular churchgoer, attending churches in Mauldin and Greenville and was a member of her family’s home church Old Field Missionary Baptist in Mullins.

Her children at the time she was murdered were 18, 11, and 10 — Arte the oldest, Jeremy the middle child and Ensley, the youngest.

The children were her world, a coworker testified at the trial.

The SC killing

In the early morning hours of Nov. 1, 1997, Graves was working with Mary Beuhner, now Hall. The two debated about who would go outside to fill the ice machine. The temperature was in the mid-60s with a slight wind and light rain.

Hall was outside when Owens and Stephen Golden, both wearing masks, entered the store. They drew their guns, Golden testified in Owens’ trial.

He said Graves was behind the counter. He stood in front of her. He motioned with his gun for her to open the cash register.

Graves did so. Owens snatched the money and told her to open the safe below the counter.

She said it was jammed.

Owens said “Oh well,” and shot her in the head, Golden testified.

They fled with $37.29.

Hall, who helped Graves get the Speedway job, said she heard a popping sound and saw two men run out of the store. She found a lifeless Graves lying face up on the floor and called 911.

Later, Owens told others who had taken part in the earlier robberies he shot the “whore,” Golden testified.

The gun has never been recovered because one of them threw it in the Conestee River.

The children

Juliana Christy, who worked for the 13th Circuit Solicitor’s office as a victim witness advocate, was the one who went to the family home in Mauldin to tell the children their mother was dead.

Ensley Graves was wearing her cheerleading uniform.

“Where’s my mom?” she asked Christy.

Christy said she had gone to heaven, she testified. Jeremy Graves at first sat on the couch then leapt into Christy’s lap, crying.

“Their mother was all they had. She was their lives,” Christy testified.

The two children went to live with Grainger; the oldest at 18 had already moved out on his own.

Nightmares, silence, filled the children’s lives in the aftermath.

Grainger said Ensley fretted about not being able to see a clear image of her mother in dreams.

Jeremy was in deep pain but tried to “act like a man,” Grainger testified.

The aftermath

Irene Graves was 41 when she was shot to death. Six days later, her funeral was held at Old Field Baptist in Mullins. She is buried in Carmichael Cemetery in Mullins.

She would have been 68 years old today.

The Speedway, located on Laurens Road not too far from the on ramp to Interstate 85, has since closed.

Ensley Graves Lee, now a mother herself, wrote on Facebook on her mother’s birthday two years ago, “Happy Heavenly Birthday.... Everyday is still tough without you. You would have had the most amazing time with your grand babies. I talk to them about you often. Rest on.”