COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man convicted in a double murder in 2002 died Friday by firing squad, a rarely used execution method never before carried out by the state.
Brad Sigmon, 67, was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m. at Broad River Correctional Institution, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections told reporters.
He was the oldest inmate executed by the state.
The spokeswoman, Chrysti Shain, said the three-person squad opened fire at 6:05 p.m. using .308 Winchester rifles.
Media witnesses said Sigmon, outfitted in a black jumpsuit, was strapped into a chair with his ankles shackled and what appeared to be a strap over his head. He had a rectangle with a bullseye placed on his heart and a hood over his head before gunshots rang out at 6:05 p.m., they said.
Afterward, the witnesses described seeing an oval-shaped stain on Sigmon’s chest.
In a final statement read before his death, Sigmon said he wanted his “closing statement to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty.”
“An eye for an eye was used as justification to the jury for seeking the death penalty,” the statement said. “At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that was. Why? Because we no longer live under the Old Testament law but now live under the New Testament.
His lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King, said in a statement that Sigmon’s death was “horrifying and violent.”
“He chose the firing squad knowing that three bullets would shatter his bones and destroy his heart,” King said. “But that was the only choice he had, after the state’s three executions by lethal injection inflicted prolonged and potentially torturous deaths on men he loved like brothers.”
Minutes before his death, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said he had reviewed Sigmon’s application for clemency and denied the request. The U.S. Supreme Court had earlier denied an application for a stay of execution.
Roughly 30 protesters were outside the prison, including the brother of the last prisoner executed by firing squad in the United States. Ronnie Lee Gardner’s brother Randy has become a fervent anti-death penalty activist since his brother’s 2010 death in Utah.
McMaster, a Republican, signed a bill in 2021 that legalized the firing squad and requires condemned inmates to choose it, lethal injection or the state’s primary execution method of electrocution. His office declined to comment.
Sigmon chose a firing squad after concerns were raised about previous lethal injection executions in South Carolina. Inmates required twice the dose of pentobarbital, and one inmate “died with his lungs massively swollen with blood and fluid,” akin to “drowning,” according to an autopsy report cited in court documents filed by the defense last month.
State prosecutors responded that Sigmon “waived any argument about lethal injection” since he chose to die by firing squad.
King said Sigmon has admitted his guilt and “accepted that he deserves punishment” but added that “he’s been asked to make this choice as to how he’s going to die” with only basic knowledge of each protocol.
South Carolina restarted executions in September after a 13-year pause caused by the state’s inability to procure lethal injection drugs. A shield law allows officials to publicly withhold details surrounding where the state sources its current supply of pentobarbital.
Richard “Dick” Harpootlian, a former prosecutor who handled death penalty cases, introduced the firing squad proposal when he served in the state Legislature in 2021. He said he “wrestled” with pushing for the method but found it “less barbaric” than the electric chair.
“I don’t relish the idea of somebody being shot to death, but if they’re going to die, this is an alternative,” Harpootlian said.
Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School who studies the death penalty, said execution by firing squad remains one of the “least inhumane” options compared to other methods, including lethal injection and nitrogen gas, given how quickly someone can die after being shot in the heart.
Its return hearkens back to other periods in American history when firing squads were more common, such as the colonial era and the Civil War, when it was used against deserters.
“Even though [a firing squad] was used in our very first execution in 1608, we’ve never had this many states adopt statutorily the firing squad until now,” Denno said, adding that a bill in Idaho would make it the primary execution method.
Witnesses to Utah’s last firing squad execution recently recalled to NBC News the sound of rapid gunfire in the chamber and how the inmate, Ronnie Lee Gardner, appeared to flinch and move his arm after being shot. A Corrections Department spokeswoman said the agency offers mental health support for staff taking part in executions.
Sigmon was found guilty in the beating deaths of his ex-girlfriend’s parents, William David Larke, 62, and Gladys Gwendolyn Larke, 59. Prosecutors say Sigmon used a baseball bat to attack the couple in their Greenville County home, and then abducted his ex-girlfriend, who managed to escape from his car. Sigmon fled and was captured in Tennessee after a multiday manhunt.
In his request for his execution to be halted, his defense lawyers said the jury at his trial was not told about his history of mental illness, including bipolar disorder, and his “traumatic and abusive childhood,” underscoring claims of ineffective legal counsel.
The South Carolina Supreme Court had previously rejected Sigmon’s request to stop his execution and did so again Tuesday, finding that such mitigating evidence “would not have influenced the jury’s appraisal of Sigmon’s culpability.”
Abigail Brooks reported from Columbia and Erik Ortiz from New York.
