Here are the 10 Midlands death row inmates who might face SC execution by firing squad
There are currently 10 men sentenced to death in the Midlands who gained the option to die by firing squad on Friday.
The South Carolina Department of Corrections informed Attorney General Alan Wilson that it could now execute death row inmates using a three-person firing squad if those prisoners chose the option.
The Legislature passed a law in 2021 that makes the electric chair South Carolina’s primary method of execution, but gives inmates the option to choose death by firing squad or lethal injection if available. Lethal injection has been unavailable for years in South Carolina.
Of the 35 current death row inmates in South Carolina, there are 10 who were convicted in the Midlands, including one in Richland, one in Aiken, five in Lexington, one in Newberry and two in York counties.
The firing squad executions will be carried out at the department’s Broad River Correctional Institution, which is outside of downtown Columbia. The agency spent about $53,600 on supplies and materials to make the changes and comply with state law.
Below is a highlight of some of the Midlands death row images, followed by the full list. View the list of all 35 death row inmates in South Carolina here.
Quincy Jovan Allen
Quincy Jovan Allen was sentenced to death after pleading guilty to four murders he committed in the summer of 2002 — all while under the delusion that he could get a job as a Mafia hit man.
In Richland County, Allen was charged with two shotgun killings.
On July 10, 2002, Dale Hale was shot repeatedly in a remote area on Oakway Drive in Columbia. Her body was doused with gasoline and set on fire. A month later, Jedediah Harr was shot and killed with a shotgun in his car outside a Two Notch Road restaurant during a confrontation between Allen and Harr’s friend.
Before the killing spree, Allen shot a 51-year-old homeless man, who was sitting on a bench in Columbia’s Finlay Park, as target practice to learn how to shoot the shotgun. That victim survived.
Allen pleaded guilty to the Richland County charges and was sentenced to death by a judge in 2005.
“He enjoyed watching those people die,” Solicitor Barney Giese said during closing arguments.
Allen’s death sentence was the first in Richland County in 10 years.
During that same two-month crime spree, Allen killed two men in North Carolina, and received two life sentences after pleading guilty to those killings.
Robert Northcutt
Robert Northcutt was sentenced to death twice after beating his 4-month-old daughter to death in 2001.
A Lexington County jury first found Northcutt guilty in the murder of infant Breanna in 2003, with evidence in the trial showing that Northcutt beat the baby to death because she wouldn’t stop crying.
Defense attorney David Bruck told jurors Northcutt, a 20-year-old new father at the time, never intended to hurt Breanna. But Solicitor Donnie Myers said Northcutt planned the killing.
The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the guilty conviction in 2007.
After a new sentencing hearing in 2009, Circuit Court Judge James Williams again sentenced Northcutt to death.
Ron Finklea
Ron Finklea shot Walter Sykes Sr., a security guard at a Lexington County electronics plant — during an August 2003 attempt to rob an ATM there — and then dousing the victim with gasoline and lighting it on fire.
Security footage showed Sykes running out of the Solectron electronics plant, his body in flames, and collapsing on the lawn.
The S.C. Supreme Court upheld Finklea’s death sentence in 2010. Finklea’s brother-in-law and codefendant in the killing was found guilty of murder in 2008 and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
1. Quincy Jovan Allen: Richland — 03/21/05 incarcerated
2. Donnie S. Council: Aiken — 10/23/96 incarcerated
3. Ron O’Neal Finklea: Lexington — 09/07/07 incarcerated
4. Timothy Ray Jones: Lexington — 09/12/14 incarcerated
5. Clinton Robert Northcutt: Lexington — 11/14/03 incarcerated
6. Norman Starnes: Lexington — 04/25/97 incarcerated
7. Gary Dubose Terry: Lexington — 09/21/97 incarcerated
8. Fred Singleton: Newberry — 09/19/83 incarcerated
9. Mar-Reece Hughes: York — 09/25/95 incarcerated
10. James D. Robertson: York — 03/27/99 incarcerated
