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Rowsey was implicated in the murder of Howard Rue Sikorski, an Alamance County convenience store clerk.
Raymond Steele, Rowsey's half-brother, was arrested upon attempting to use a two-dollar bill tracked following the robbery by its serial number.
Days prior to the scheduled execution, Rowsey and several other North Carolina death row inmates filed a federal class-action lawsuit regarding the constitutionality of the state's procedures for lethal injection.
The lawsuit alleged that the combination of drugs administered left open the possibility that an individual being executed could regain consciousness prior to death, leaving him paralyzed but in intense pain prior to death, and thus in violation of the eighth amendment injunction preventing "cruel and unusual punishment."
Shortly before midnight, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley refused to grant clemency in Rowsey's case, and the execution took place two hours later.