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09-03-2025
COLUMBIA: A South Carolina man convicted of bludgeoning his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death has become the first US death row inmate to be executed by firing squad in the last 15 years.
Brad Sigmon was shot to death just after 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT) on Friday by three state corrections department volunteers firing rifles at his chest with specially designed bullets.
Sigmon, 67, was convicted of murdering David and Gladys Larke with a baseball bat in 2001 before kidnapping his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint. She managed to escape as he shot at her.
He had requested death by firing squad over the other two state-approved methods of execution; electric chair and lethal injection.
Chrysti Shain, of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, said that Sigmon was pronounced dead by a doctor at 18:08 local time.
Three members of the Larke family were present to witness his death, she said, as well as Sigmon’s spiritual adviser.
Sigmon was strapped to a chair, which had a basin underneath to catch blood, witnesses said.
He told witnesses he wanted his final 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,” he added.
“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.”
After his final statement, a hood was placed over his head.
A curtain that concealed three volunteers opened at 18:01. At 18:05, the trio fired from 15ft (4.6m) away without any countdown.
Jeffrey Collins, a reporter for the Associated Press news agency, said at a news conference that Sigmon had a red bullseye target placed over his heart.
When he was shot, his chest rose and fell several times, the reporter added.
A doctor performed an exam that took about 90 seconds, before declaring him dead at 18:08.
The .308 Winchester Tap Urban bullets used are designed to break apart on impact and cause maximum damage. Medical experts have debated the amount of pain they may cause.
Anna Dobbins, a reporter for WHFF-TV, added that Sigmon wore a black jump suit, but had bear arms that “flexed” when he was shot.
“I did see a splash of blood when the bullets entered his body,” she told the news conference.
She said all the shots were fired simultaneously, and that witnesses were unable to see the guns.
Prison guards also offered witnesses’ ear plugs to protect their ears from the sound of the shots, added a reporter for the Post and Courier newspaper.
Counselling services are being offered to any prison staff who were traumatized by the execution, said Shain. Sigmon’s lawyer, Bo King, had been hoping for a last-minute stay of execution by the South Carolina governor and accused the state of withholding information about the lethal injection process.
“Brad only wanted assurances that these drugs were not expired, or diluted, or spoiled what any of us would want to know about the medication we take, or the food we eat, much less the means of our death,” he said in a statement after his death. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
