GREENVILLE, SC (FOX Carolina) – The daughter of a woman murdered in 1997 is speaking out for the first time as the man responsible for her death prepares for his execution.

Irene Graves was 41 years old, a single mother of three children, and worked three jobs at the time of her death.

Her oldest child was in college, while her two youngest children were 10 and 11.

Her daughter, Ensley Graves-Lee, who was only 10 at the time, is now a speech therapist and lives in Rock Hill with her husband and three children of her own. Graves-Lee said she is still very close to her two brothers. She said even after all these years, it is difficult to answer the question of how they are processing their grief.

“I think I’ve adopted the ‘we can do this’ mentality so much that my mantra is basically, after you get through the horror of making it to the funeral or making it to jail or making it to court to, you know, meet the person who did this thing, you just approach it as you just have to get it over with,” Graves-Lee said.

Graves-Lee’s mother, Irene, was working as an employee at the Old Speedway on Laurens Road at the time of her death.

She and her brother, then 11, were sleeping at home, but Graves-Lee said when she woke up, she knew something was wrong. Although her mother is no longer with her, she said, they are doing well. She also mentioned a few things people should know about her mother.

“She loved her children more than anything in the world and never in her life planned to leave them behind, even with the uncertainty of what was going to happen to her,” Graves-Lee said. “She made sure she left her children with the plans that she had for them and she left her children with the strength to carry them out, and we’re OK. (Pause) She did that well.”

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