Richard Bernard Moore was pronounced dead at 6:24 p. m. on November 1, 2024, inside the death chamber at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina.
The 57-year-old death row inmate had just heard his final words read aloud by his attorney, words of apology to the family of the man he killed and expressions of love for his own children and grandchildren. The execution, carried out by lethal injection, made Moore the second person executed in South Carolina since the state resumed capital punishment in September 2024 after a 13-year pause, and the 45th since the death penalty was reinstated nationwide.
But this was no routine execution.
What set Richard Moore’s case apart, what made his death a flashpoint for a national debate about justice, race, and redemption, was the extraordinary coalition that fought to spare his life. The judge who sentenced him to death begged the governor for clemency. Three of the jurors who condemned him wrote letters pleading for mercy.
The former director of the state’s prison system, a staunch supporter of capital punishment, recommended that Moore’s sentence be commuted for the first time in his entire career. And yet, Governor Henry McMaster refused to intervene.
The execution proceeded despite those pleas, and the questions it raises will linger long after the chemicals have left Moore’s body.
Can a person who commits a violent crime truly change? Does the justice system have room for redemption? And what does it mean when the very people who participated in a death sentence come to believe that sentence was wrong?
The story of Richard Bernard Moore begins on September 16, 1999, at 3 a. m. in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
The scene was a small convenience store called Nikki’s Speedy Mart. Inside, 42-year-old clerk James Mahoney was watching hurricane news on a small television. The only other person in the store was Terry Hadden, a customer playing video poker in the corner.
Then Richard Moore walked in. He was 34 years old, and crucially, he was unarmed when he entered the store.
Moore grabbed two cans of Icehouse beer and walked to the counter.
What happened next has been described in two radically different versions. According to eyewitness Terry Hadden, he heard Mahoney yell, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Hadden turned to see Moore holding both of Mahoney’s hands with one hand and a gun in the other.
Moore pointed the gun at Hadden and told him not to move, then fired. The bullet missed.
But Moore’s version, given years later during post-conviction hearings, painted a starkly different picture.
He claimed he was about 11 or 12 cents short for his beer purchase. According to Moore, Mahoney responded by saying, “Get your black ass out of my store.” Those words, Moore said, made him angry enough that he refused to leave.
During the struggle that followed, both men were shot. Mahoney pulled a second gun and shot Moore in the arm. Moore shot Mahoney in the chest.
James Mahoney died from that wound.
Moore then went behind the counter and stole approximately $1,400 in cash before fleeing. About a mile and a half from the store, Deputy Bobby Rollins heard a loud bang.
He found a pickup truck that had backed into a telephone pole. Richard Moore was sitting in the back, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his left arm. As Rollins ordered him to surrender, Moore immediately confessed: “I did it.
I did it. I give up.” The stolen money was in a blood-covered bag in the front seat.
The murder weapon was found on a nearby highway shortly before dawn. The case seemed open and shut.
But two years later, when Richard Moore went to trial, something happened that would haunt the case for more than two decades.
The prosecutor, Trey Gowdy—who would later become a U. S. congressman and a household name in American politics—struck every single eligible African-American from the jury pool.
Every single one. The result was an all-white jury, 11 white jurors and one Hispanic juror, deciding the fate of a Black man accused of murdering a white store clerk. Richard Moore became the last person on South Carolina’s death row to be convicted by a jury with no Black members whatsoever.
The jury convicted Moore of murder, armed robbery, assault with intent to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁, and possession of a firearm during a violent crime. During the penalty phase, they found three statutory aggravating factors: murder during armed robbery, creating great risk to others in a public place, and committing murder for monetary gain. On October 22, 2001, Judge Gary Clary sentenced Richard Bernard Moore to death.
His first execution date was set for January 22, 2002, just three months away.
But Richard Moore did not die in 2002. He did not die in 2003, or 2010, or 2020.
Instead, he lived on death row for 23 years, and during that time, something unexpected happened. Death row changes people, often making them harder, more bitter, consumed by rage. Richard Moore went in the opposite direction.
He was baptized as a Christian. Every Sunday he called Pastor Rick Russ to do virtual communion together. He took up painting and created an acrylic nativity scene that he sent to the pastor.
More importantly, his behavior over those 23 years spoke louder than any words. In more than two decades in one of the harshest environments in the American prison system, Moore had only two minor disciplinary infractions. The first was for using disrespectful language toward an officer.
The second was for having Skittles outside his cell. Both incidents occurred in his first few years. For the remaining two decades, nothing.
No violence, no infractions, no incidents.
Jon Osmond, the former director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections who ran the system from 2003 to 2011, watched Moore for years. Osmond is a strong supporter of capital punishment.
He believes in the death penalty. But when it came to Richard Moore, Osmond did something he had never done in his entire career. He recommended clemency.
He called Moore a reliable, consistent force for good on death row. The man whose job was to manage death row, a staunch death penalty supporter, looked at Richard Moore and said, “This man should not die.”
Every Sunday evening, Moore called his children.
Not just on birthdays, not just when he felt like it. Every Sunday. He sent them cards, drew pictures of SpongeBob and Ren and Stimpy, created homemade word puzzles, and exchanged them with his daughter Alexandria.
His children said he remained engaged in their lives from behind bars, giving advice and letters, staying present even when he could not physically be there. Later, he saw his grandchildren on video calls. This was a man who went into prison as a violent criminal and spent 23 years becoming a father, a grandfather, an artist, a Christian, and a force for good behind bars.
Moore’s execution was postponed over and over. Originally set for January 22, 2002, then December 4, 2020, when it was stayed because South Carolina lacked lethal injection drugs. Then April 29, 2022, when Moore chose the firing squad.
But the state supreme court issued a temporary stay. On July 31, 2024, the court finally ruled that South Carolina’s execution methods—firing squad and electrocution—were constitutional. A new execution date was set: November 1, 2024.
By then, something unprecedented was happening. Judge Gary Clary, the man who sentenced Moore to death in 2001, wrote to the governor: “Moore’s case is unique, and after years of thought and reflection, I humbly ask that you grant executive clemency to Mr. Moore as an act of grace and mercy.”
The judge who had pronounced the death sentence was now begging for Moore’s life to be spared. Three of the jurors who originally condemned Moore wrote letters asking for his sentence to be changed to life without parole. These were not bleeding-heart activists.
They were the people who sat in that courtroom in 2001, heard the evidence, and decided Richard Moore deserved to die. Twenty-three years later, they changed their minds.
John Osmond, the former corrections director, joined them.
Moore’s son Lindell and daughter Alexandria pleaded for their father’s life. Childhood friends, pastors, and organizations rallied. An unprecedented coalition formed around one simple idea: Richard Moore had changed.
The man on death row in 2024 was not the same man who walked into the Nikki’s Speedy Mart in 1999. The question became, “Does our justice system have room for redemption?”
Governor Henry McMaster faced a choice no South Carolina governor had made in nearly 50 years.
No South Carolina governor has reduced a death sentence since the U. S. Supreme Court allowed states to restart executions nearly half a century ago.
On November 1, 2024, McMaster announced his decision: clemency denied. He provided no specific reason. His statement said only that he had reviewed all materials and spoken to the victim’s family.
The execution would proceed.
For his last meal, Moore chose steak cooked medium, fried catfish and shrimp, scalloped potatoes, green peas, broccoli with cheese, sweet potato pie, German chocolate cake, and grape juice. Comfort food, Southern staples, the tastes of home and better days.
Moore had been given a choice between lethal injection, firing squad, or electric chair. He chose lethal injection. He prepared a final statement, but he would not deliver it himself.
His attorney, Lindsey Vann, would read it for him.
“To the family of Mr. James Mahoney, I am deeply sorry for the pain and sorrow I caused you all.
To my children and granddaughters, I love you and I am so proud of you. Thank you for the joy you have brought to my life. To all of my family and friends, new and old, thank you for your love and support.”
No proclamations of innocence. No rage at the system. Just remorse for the victim’s family and love for his own.
At the Broad River Correctional Institution, witnesses began gathering. Present were two family members of James Mahoney, Moore’s attorney Lindsey Vann, his spiritual advisor, three journalists, a state corrections official, a law enforcement agent, and Spartanburg solicitor Barry Barnett, one of the prosecutors who had helped convict Moore 23 years earlier. Outside, about 25 to 40 protesters held a vigil, reading the names of the 44 other South Carolinians executed since 1976.
Inside the death chamber, something unusual happened. Unlike previous executions, the curtain was already open when media witnesses arrived. Moore’s last words had already been read.
He lay strapped to a gurney, a blanket covering most of his body. His eyes were closed, his head pointed toward the ceiling. At 6:01 p.
m. , a prison employee announced the execution could begin. Moore took several deep breaths that sounded like snores over the next minute.
Then his breathing became shallow. At approximately 6:04 p. m.
, his breathing stopped.
But death does not come instantly with lethal injection. The heart continues.
The body processes. Time stretches. Lindsey Vann clutched a prayer bracelet with a cross.
Tears streamed down her face. The seconds ticked by: one minute, two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. For 21 minutes, Richard Moore’s body lay on that gurney as the chemicals did their work.
Witnesses reported he showed no obvious signs of discomfort. At 6:24 p. m.
, 21 minutes after the lethal injection began, Richard Bernard Moore was pronounced dead.
He was 57 years old. He had spent 23 years on death row, nearly half his life.
And in the end, the last words anyone heard from him were words of love for his family and sorrow for the family of the man he killed 25 years ago in a convenience store in Spartanburg. The questions his case raises echo far beyond South Carolina. Can people truly change, or are we forever defined by our worst moments?
When the judge who sentenced someone to death and the jurors who condemned them all ask for mercy, should that matter? What does justice look like when it is administered by an all-white jury judging a Black defendant? Is 23 years of exemplary behavior on death row enough to earn a second chance at life?
These are not easy questions. They do not have simple answers. James Mahoney’s family lost someone they loved in a violent robbery.
That pain is real. That loss is permanent. Nothing can bring him back.
The story of Richard Bernard Moore is ultimately about all of us. It is about what we believe justice means. It is about whether we think redemption is possible.
It is about who deserves to live and who deserves to die, and who gets to make those decisions. On November 1, 2024, the state of South Carolina decided that despite everything—despite the judge’s plea, despite the jurors’ letters, despite the prison director’s recommendation, despite 23 years of transformation—Richard Moore’s crime in 1999 was unforgivable. At 6:24 p.
m. , 21 minutes after the lethal injection began, that decision became final.