CHARLESTON COUNTY, SC (WCIV) — Despite thousands of signatures and calls for change, Gov. Henry McMaster did not grant clemency to Richard Moore on Friday, allowing the state to carry out his execution. The death row inmate is now the second person to be sentenced to death since the death penalty was reinstated in South Carolina.

Community members gathered Friday evening for a prayer vigil held at Cokesbury United Methodist Church to honor the life of Richard Moore. A single church bell tolled as the names of each of the people who have been killed in South Carolina since 1999 were called, adding Moore to the list.

South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty say community vigils like these are meant to provide space for the pain surrounding the death penalty.

Moore was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Friday for the 1999 shooting death of convenience store clerk James Mahoney. Moore is the second person in South Carolina to be sentenced to death since the death penalty resumed after a 13-year hiatus. No other South Carolina death penalty case has involved an unarmed defendant who said he defended himself when the victim threatened him with a gun after Moore tried to rob him.

During the ceremony, Senior Pastor Reverend Bryan Pigfod said: “In these vigils we like to try to fill out Richard’s story a bit and give us more of a complete view of the human being that Richard is versus the two-dimensional view that is so often focused on.”

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The reverend shared stories about Moore’s relationships with his children, his connections with other inmates and clergy, and his path to faith, which played a vital role in his life.

Moore is the last black person in South Carolina to be sentenced to death by an all-white jury, and his case was deeply politicized during the Spartanburg County District Attorney’s primary campaign at the time. The clergy leading the vigil say it is important to continue to fight for change in our communities.

“It shows that while the momentum may be building slowly, it’s definitely building and we’re going to see more and more people coming out and saying please don’t kill in my name,” Reverend Pigford told News 4 .

The vigil, in partnership with South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, was one of many vigils held across the state and comes after South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty delivered thousands of signatures to Governor McMaster asking him to Moore’s clemency and reduce his sentence to life in prison.

In the end, McMaster showed no mercy for Moore. The executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said vigils like the one in North Charleston are a space for grief, but also a place for change, serving as a catalyst for our communities to move forward by turning sadness into action.

“It’s also a call-to-action space where we help people connect to our activism and work to abolish the death penalty and catalyze criminal justice reform in South Carolina,” South Carolinians Executive Director for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Reverend Hillary Taylor. said.

South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty officials said Moore should never have received a death sentence and believe that if his case had gone to trial today, his fate would have been different.