South Carolina man executed by firing squad in US for first time in 15 years
Brad Sigmon, convicted of the 2001 beating deaths of his ex-girlfriend’s parents, was executed by firing squad on Friday, marking the first use of the method in the US after a 15-year hiatus.
Brad Sigmon, 67, chose to be killed by bullets, saying he feared the alternatives of the electric chair and lethal injection would risk a slower and more painful death.
He had beaten his ex-girlfriend’s parents, William and Gladys Larke, to death with a baseball bat at their home in the town of Taylors, South Carolina, in 2001.
He told police he planned to take his ex-girlfriend on a romantic weekend before killing himself and her, and he was sentenced to death in 2002.
Before his execution on Friday, Brad Sigmon appealed to the US Supreme Court on Wednesday to halt the process, arguing that South Carolina’s refusal to disclose details about its lethal injection protocol violated his rights.
Sigmon’s lawyer, Bo King, pointed out that the last three men executed in the state chose lethal injection, and each process took approximately 20 minutes before they were pronounced dead.
He said Sigmon was left with “an impossible choice” and was forced “to decide whether to die by the firing squad, knowing that the bullets are going to break the bones in his chest and destroy his heart, or risk a 20-minute-long execution strapped to a gurney with your lungs filling with blood and fluid”.
Ahead of the execution, a group of protesters gathered outside the South Carolina Department of Corrections, holding signs with messages including “all life is precious” and “execute justice not people.”
Execution by firing squad has been rare in the US since 1977, with only three instances occurring in Utah - one of five states where the method, widely used during the Civil War era, remains an option.
The last person executed by firing squad was Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010, who was sentenced to death for killing a man during an attempted courthouse escape in 1985.
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