COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Just days before inmate Freddie Owens is set to die by lethal injection in South Carolina, the friend whose testimony helped send Owens to prison is saying he lied to save himself from the death chamber.

At times, Freddie Eugene Owens' letters are incredibly vulnerable as he says he's "also human." At others they threaten violence and say "betrayers will be slayed"

In South Carolina, the governor has the lone ability to grant clemency and reduce a death sentence to life in prison. However, no governor has done that in the state’s 43 executions since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976.