South Carolina's longest-serving death row inmate dies of natural causes after 42 years in prison

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina inmate who spent 42 years on death row has died of natural causes at a prison hospital, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Fred Singleton, 81, was sentenced to die in 1983 for raping and strangling a woman in Newberry County and stealing her jewelry, according to court records. He was the state’s longest-serving inmate on death row.

Singleton spent his last three decades in prison in legal limbo after the state Supreme Court ruled he wasn’t competent to be executed because he didn’t understand he could die in the electric chair and only answered questions from his attorneys with “yes” or “no.”

But the justices also decided in 1993 that Singleton’s death sentence should remain in case advances in psychology allowed him to get better