Murder victim's family has been 'counting down the minutes' until South Carolina execution

Kandee Martin was murdered on a dark country road 24 years ago, but her sister-in-law's favorite memory of the forever 21-year-old woman stands out in vivid, hilarious detail: a very pregnant Kandee, licking a frozen pig's foot as if it were a popsicle.

"In the South at our country stores you can get pickled pigs' feet, and when she was pregnant she would get those and freeze them. It was totally gross," Lisa Martin of Bowman, South Carolina, told Paste BN this week, laughing at the memory.

Although the family would tease Kandee about her often oddball taste in food (liver and onions was a regular supper), she didn't care.

"She liked what she liked, and that was just her," Martin said. "She was always herself, regardless of who she was around. She was that comfortable in her skin. She never felt like she needed to act like someone that she was not, and her motto was: 'If you like me, great. If not, oh well, your loss.'"

Memories both wonderful and terrible have been flooding Kandee's family in recent weeks as the execution of the man convicted of killing her approaches. South Carolina prison officials are scheduled to execute Marion Bowman Jr. by lethal injection on Friday. Bowman maintains his innocence, an assertion Kandee's family doesn't buy.

As part of its coverage of the execution − the first in the U.S. this year − Paste BN is looking back at the crime, who Kandee was and how the young mother's loss has devastated her family.

Who was Kandee Martin?

The daughter of a rebar contractor and a stay-at-home mom, Kandee grew up in the tiny town of Branchville in rural South Carolina, about halfway between Charleston and Columbia. The town had limited employment options and was so small, Martin recalls that her graduating high school had just 21 students.

Kandee wanted something more and talked often of making it to Charleston and starting a career.

"She was a small town girl whose dream was to get out of the small town and just make something of her life," Martin said.

Before Kandee could get out of Branchville, she got pregnant with a baby boy who was both unexpected and a welcome blessing. "She went from being just a young single girl to being someone's mom, and to her, that was the coolest thing ever," Martin said.

Kandee's son Tyler "was a very happy, giggly, chunky baby," and his mother was in love.

"When I close my I eyes, I can still hear those two giggling with each other," Martin said.

Kandee's murder happened on Feb. 16, 2001. Five days after that, Tyler turned 2.

What happened to Kandee Martin?

Like too many places in the United States with too few opportunities for young people, drugs flourished in Branchville. At some point, Kandee got caught up.

She developed a liking for crack cocaine and like too many Americans, fought furiously to quit. Martin said she struggled mightily with the addiction and was at a low point the day she was murdered.

Bowman, the man set to be executed for killing her, said he sold drugs to Martin several times throughout that day and that later on she was "buying on credit," according to a testimonial he recently wrote to proclaim his innocence of the murder and express regret about his role in her downfall.

Bowman said the two had sex later on in the day and that he last saw her driving off in her car with his cousin, also a dealer who later became the star witness at Bowman's murder trial.

On Feb. 17, 2001, police found Martin's body. She had been shot once in the chest and once in the head. Her killer put her body in the trunk of her car and lit the car on fire, court records show.

"We go to bed at night thinking everything's OK, and we wake up the next morning and our whole world changed," Martin said. "It was total shock because you know, this doesn't happen in Branchville. This doesn't happen to our family."

To try to keep a sense of normalcy for Tyler, the grief-stricken family threw his previously planned Elmo-themed birthday party on Feb. 21, 2001. Instead of his mother, the attendees included victims' advocates and police investigators.

24 years later, the family finds justice and closure

People whose family members are murdered by killers who end up on Death Row can choose to witness their eventual execution. Kandee's family has decided against it.

"That's just not something that any of us want to have to watch," she said. "It kind of puts you in a weird predicament whenever you're a Christian and you also believe in the death penalty. It kind of gives you mixed emotions."

But she said the family does feel like the execution will bring them closure and has been "counting down the minutes" until he dies.

"He gets to do so many things that Kandee doesn't get to do. He gets to speak to his family. I read that he got to hold a grandchild ... He's had 24 years to find God and he can to tie up his loose ends," Martin said. "We never got that opportunity. What was left of Kandee is in a coffin in the ground."

Despite all the family's pain and sorrow, they choose to focus on the good times, when Kandee was just being Kandee. Martin recalled the first time she saw her future sister-in-law. Martin was 10 years old, and Kandee was 13 and seemed so grown-up and glamourous.

"I remember just seeing her walking and just thinking how beautiful she was − blonde hair, gorgeous brown eyes," Martin said. "It was like she had a glow ... She looked like a princess."