A Meeting That Turned Deadly
On February 16, 2001, 21-year-old Kandee Louise Martin was in Dorchester County, South Carolina, when she crossed paths with someone she already knew.
Marion Bowman Jr. had known Kandee since high school. According to court records described in the source material, the two had a dispute involving money. Earlier that day, Bowman encountered Kandee while she was with a group of friends. He asked her about the money, and when she told him to wait, his sister later recalled him making a disturbing threat.
That evening, Kandee drove to a house where Bowman and several others had been drinking.
Bowman and his cousin James Tywan Gadson got into Kandee’s car. They eventually traveled to a more isolated location.
According to Gadson’s testimony, Bowman had already spoken about killing Kandee before they got out of the vehicle. Once they were outside, Bowman pulled out a gun and shot her.
Kandee pleaded for her life and reportedly reminded him that she had a child who needed her.
But she did not survive.
The Attempt to Hide the Crime
After the shooting, Kandee’s body was taken into the surrounding woods.
Bowman then drove her car back toward town. Later, he attempted to find someone willing to buy the vehicle, but that effort failed. He continued driving it with other people before eventually returning to the area where Kandee had been killed.
Bowman enlisted another acquaintance, Travis Felder, to help him.
The two returned to the location, where Kandee’s body was placed inside the trunk of her own car. Bowman then set the vehicle on fire.
According to the court record, he told Felder that he had killed Kandee before the two men left the scene.
The following day, investigators discovered the burned vehicle.
Inside the trunk was Kandee’s body.
She was only 21 years old.
The Trial
In June 2001, Bowman was indicted for murder and third-degree arson.
His trial began the following year. The prosecution relied heavily on testimony from people who had been connected to the events surrounding Kandee’s death.
The defense challenged that testimony, particularly Gadson’s credibility, pointing out that he had entered into a plea agreement and had his own interests at stake. The defense also questioned evidence involving the firearm.
But on May 24, 2002, after approximately three hours of deliberation, the jury found Bowman guilty of both murder and arson.
The sentencing phase followed immediately.
The defense presented mitigating evidence about Bowman’s troubled upbringing and history of substance abuse, arguing that he should receive life imprisonment rather than death.
Prosecutors argued for the death penalty.
The jury unanimously recommended death for the murder conviction.
Bowman was sentenced to death and received an additional ten-year sentence for the arson conviction.
Kandee’s case had now entered a legal process that would continue for more than two decades.
Twenty-Three Years on Death Row
Bowman continued challenging his conviction and death sentence through multiple appeals.
His lawyers raised questions about the trial, including the reliability of witness testimony and allegations concerning evidence that they argued should have been disclosed. Bowman maintained that he had not been responsible for Kandee’s murder.
Those arguments were rejected by the courts, and his death sentence remained in place.
As the years passed, Bowman remained on South Carolina’s death row.
The case also became connected to a broader debate over South Carolina’s methods of execution. During this period, the state faced difficulties obtaining lethal-injection drugs and later resumed executions after introducing alternative methods, including the electric chair and firing squad.
In 2024, South Carolina’s Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the electric chair and firing squad. Bowman’s execution was eventually scheduled for January 31, 2025.
He was given a choice between the available execution methods.
Bowman chose lethal injection.
The Final Day
On January 31, 2025, nearly 24 years after Kandee Martin was killed, Marion Bowman Jr. was executed at Broad River Correctional Institution.
He was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m.
Bowman had continued to deny that he murdered Kandee, even as his conviction and death sentence remained upheld through the courts. Shortly before his execution, he released a final statement through his attorneys.
Kandee’s family did not attend the execution.
They said they felt justice had been served and spoke about the life Kandee never got to live. She had been a young mother when she was killed, and her family remembered that she never had the opportunity to watch her child grow up or become a grandmother.
Her death had taken place in a matter of minutes.
The consequences lasted for decades.
Kandee Martin was 21 years old when her life was taken in February 2001. Her name became part of a long-running murder investigation, a death-penalty case, and years of appeals.
But behind all of the court proceedings was a young woman who had a family, a child, and a future that was suddenly taken away.
More than two decades later, the legal case finally came to an end.
For Kandee’s family, the date January 31, 2025, marked the final chapter of the court process—but it could never change the loss that began on that February night in 2001.
This story is based on publicly available information and reported facts. It has been independently written and presented for informational purposes. Images, if any, belong to their respective owners.