An Alabama man who busted out of jail 16 years ago and fatally shot a police officer and another man in the midst of a crime spree is set to die by lethal injection Friday in South Carolina’s execution chamber.

Thomas Treshawn Ivey, 34, of Union Springs, Ala., is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. in Columbia for killing Tommy Harrison, a 38-year-old Orangeburg police sergeant. Ivey has pursued all of his state appeals, and a last request for either a stay of execution or a shot at a new trial now sits before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Authorities say Ivey’s crime spree began in January 1993, when he and another inmate escaped from the Barbour County Jail in Clayton, Ala., where Ivey was being held on a murder charge. Ivey and Vincent Neuman busted out of jail, stole a truck and drove to South Carolina, ending up in Neuman’s hometown of Columbia.

There, authorities say the pair kidnapped businessman Robert Montgomery, who was working downtown with his janitorial service. Ivey and Neuman drove Montgomery to a field outside the town of North. Neuman later testified that while there, Ivey shot Montgomery in the head and chest, leaving his body to be discovered by hunters.

Two days later, the pair visited the Prince of Orange Mall, where a clerk accused them of trying to pass a stolen check. Harrison responded to the call but let Ivey go when he realized Neuman was trying to use the check.

Ivey told police a handgun in his pocket fired accidentally as he walked away, and the bullet ricocheted off the floor, hitting Harrison in the leg. Ivey said he then panicked, shooting the officer five more times, according to court records.

Neuman, now 40, eventually testified against Ivey and is serving a life sentence for murder in South Carolina. Ivey was convicted and sentenced to death for both murders, but Friday’s execution is only for Harrison’s death.

More than 16 years after her son’s death, Jean Harrison said she hopes Friday’s events will bring the family some long-awaited closure.

“We have learned to live with it,” said Harrison, who does not plan to witness the execution. “And sometimes it’s not easy, but this is just something that you can’t get off your mind, and I’ll be glad when it’s over. ... We’ve had a lot of people praying for us, and that certainly helps, too.”

Harrison says her son, who was a 10-year law enforcement veteran, died doing what he liked most: protecting Orangeburg’s citizens.

“He finally felt like that was his calling,” she says. “He just enjoyed what he was doing.”

Ivey had tried to plead guilty to killing Harrison but also have a jury decide his sentence, but was denied. In South Carolina, defendants who enter guilty pleas are sentenced by judges.

In 1999, Ivey and another convicted cop-killer were moved off death row to the state’s super maximum security prison after they were caught trying to escape. Mar-Reece Hughes, convicted of killing a York County sheriff’s deputy in 1992, stabbed a prison guard at Lieber Correctional Institution and used the guard’s keys to free Ivey.

The guard survived a stab wound to the chest.

Ivey was returned to Lieber in 2001 and stayed on death row until 2007, when he was sent back to the super max prison in Columbia after attacking a prison employee. Ivey will remain at the super max prison until he is moved to a cell at the state’s death chamber, likely early Friday.

Ivey’s attorneys have filed one last appeal, arguing to the U.S. Supreme court that one of Ivey’s previous appellate lawyers was so incompetent that he was eventually disbarred. Robert Dudek also said that attorney should have asked that Ivey’s sentence be overturned because the prosecutor at trial pointed out prisoners serving life sentences can exercise, watch TV, listen to stereos and get three meals a day in air-conditioned buildings.

“That’s life in prison in South Carolina,” prosecutor Walter Bailey told jurors, according to a court transcript. “And in the meantime, Tommy Harrison is in his grave. Now, is that justice?”

The high court has not yet ruled on Ivey’s final appeal. He would be the second person in South Carolina executed this year and the 283rd since the reinstatement of capital punishment.

Other local death row inmates

Below is a list of other death row inmates from the region, listed in chronological order, according to the date the crimes took place. A brief synopsis is given for the Orangeburg, Calhoun and Dorchester county cases. Bamberg County currently has no one on death row, according to the S.C. Department of Corrections.

* Roger Dale Johnson Jr. — Convicted of killing Kimberly Sue Edwards with a machete.

In February 1996, a Calhoun County jury spent less than a hour before finding Johnson guilty of murder. Four days later, Johnson was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murder in the slaying of the 30-year-old Edwards of Taylors.

Edwards’ body was discovered by passing motorists on June 17, 1994, off Interstate 26 about a mile west of S.C. Highway 6 in Calhoun County.

* Bayan Aleksey — Convicted of killing Highway Patrol 1st Sgt. Frankie Lingard.

Aleksey, of Philadelphia, was found guilty in August 1998 for shooting Highway Patrol 1st Sgt. Frankie Lingard.

On Dec. 31, 1997, Lingard was patrolling Interstate 95 near Santee with narcotics officer Deputy Lin Shirer of Calhoun County. It was around 11:30 p.m. when Lingard pulled over a white Mustang GT with Delaware license plates.

At Aleksey’s trial, prosecutors entered into evidence radio transmissions that recorded Lingard’s last moments alive. “G8 Orangeburg ... I-95, 97-mile marker southbound ... white Ford Mustang ... 982722...”

Seconds later, a terror-stricken Deputy Shirer screamed into his handset. “Orangeburg! Orangeburg 1033! Officer down, he’s hit!”

* Charles O. Shuler — Convicted of killing three women: Linda Williams, Dorothy Gates and Stacy Williams.

Shuler, 60, of Elloree, was sentenced to die in March 2001 for murdering his former girlfriend, her mother and her 13-year-old daughter on Sept. 8, 1999.

Brandishing a 12-gauge shotgun, Shuler broke into Linda Williams’ Myrtle Drive home near Cordova and opened fire.

* Samuel L. Stokes — Convicted of killing and sexually assaulting Connie Snipes.

Stokes was sent to the S.C. Department of Corrections on Halloween Day 1999 after being found guilty on charges of murder, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and first-degree criminal sexual misconduct.

The charges against the 42-year-old Orangeburg man were levied after the nearly nude body of Connie Snipes, 21, was found in Branchville in May 1998. She had been shot twice in the head and an autopsy showed she had been sexually assaulted.

* Mikal Deen Mahdi — Pleaded guilty to the fatal shooting of ODPS Capt. James Myers.

After a massive manhunt for the Virginia man, Mahdi was captured after a brief car chase with police in Satellite Beach, Fla.

Myers was shot to death on his Calhoun County property, the final act of Mahdi’s multi-state crime spree.

At his December 2006 trial, Mahdi, of Lawrenceville, Va., surprised the court when he chose to plead guilty to all charges related to the July 2004 death of Myers.

Dorchester County cases

* Timothy Rogers — Convicted in the 1992 murder of a 9-year-old girl.

In December 2000, the state Supreme Court reaffirmed the death sentence and unanimously upheld Rogers’ sentence.

* Kenneth Simmons — Sentenced to die for raping and killing an 87-year-old woman in Dorchester County in September 1996.

* John Edward Weik — Convicted in 1999 for the slaying of 27-year-old Susan Hutto Krasae at her home in Knightsville.

She was the mother of Weik’s son. Weik had confessed that he fired at least four shotgun blasts at Krasae.

* Marion (a.k.a. “J.R.”) Bowman Jr. — Found guilty of murder and arson in connection with 21-year-old Kandee Louis Martin’s murder. The Bowman man was sentenced to death after his May 2002 trial.

* Kenneth Justus — Pleaded guilty last December to his third murder and was given the death penalty by Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein. Justus was already serving two consecutive life sentences for two murders he committed in the 1990s.

Justus, a Lieber Corrections inmate, murdered fellow inmate Justin Bergenzer.

The T&D contributed to this report.

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