For the first time in fifteen years, South Carolina uses a firing squad to execute a death row inmate

Brad Sigmon was the first person executed by firing squad in 15 years when he was put to death in South Carolina. 

Brad Sigmon, a man from South Carolina who was found guilty of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents, was the first death row inmate in the United States to be executed by firing squad in fifteen years. 

At 18:08 local time (23:08 GMT) on Friday, three volunteers from the state correctional department shot Sigmon, 67, in the chest with specially made bullets, and he was declared dead. The Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina, is where the execution happened. 

Convicted in 2001 for using a baseball bat to brutally kill David and Gladys Larke before robbing his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint, Sigmon had opted for the firing squad instead of the state’s two approved means of execution—lethal injection and the electric chair. 

Three Larke family members were present to watch the execution, along with Sigmon’s spiritual advisor, according to Chrysti Shain, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections. 

Witnesses said that Sigmon was strapped into a chair that had a basin to collect blood. He urged Christians to support the death penalty’s abolition in his parting remarks. “The jury used the adage ‘an eye for an eye’ to justify the death penalty,” he claimed. I was too naive at the time to see how incorrect that was. Why? because the New Testament law now governs our lives instead of the Old Testament rule. 

A hood was put over his head after he finished speaking. A curtain hiding the executioners opened at 18:01, and the three volunteers fired without a countdown from 15 feet (4.6 meters) apart at 18:05. 

According to Associated Press writer Jeffrey Collins, Sigmon had a red bullseye target placed over his heart throughout the incident. Collins stated, “His chest rose and fell multiple times when he was shot.” After examining him for about ninety seconds, a doctor declared him dead. 

.308 Winchester Tap Urban rounds, which are made to fragment on impact to maximize injury, were used for the execution.

Whether this technique results in excessive pain has been disputed by medical professionals. WHFF-TV reporter Anna Dobbins said she saw a “splash of blood” as the gunshots hit. Even though all of the guns were fired at once and the executioners were still hidden, she said, Sigmon’s arms “flexed” upon impact. 

Witnesses were given earplugs by prison officials to reduce the noise of firing. Prison employees who could have been disturbed by the execution have been offered counseling services, Shain stated.
 
Bo King, Sigmon’s attorney, had argued for a last-minute stay of execution, claiming that the state had concealed important information on injectable chemicals that could be fatal. “Brad only wanted guarantees that these medications weren’t diluted, spoiled, or expired—what any of us would want to know about the food we eat, the medications we take, much less the reason we die,” he stated. 

King went on to say that Sigmon had been rehabilitated while inside, saying, “It is inconceivable that, in 2025, South Carolina would execute one of its citizens in this bloody spectacle.” 

King also disclosed that, in an attempt to share his final supper with other death row convicts, Sigmon had asked for three buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken. But this request was turned down. He was given four pieces of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, cheesecake, and sweet tea on Wednesday night, according to later confirmation from officials. 

Since Utah’s execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010, Sigmon’s death represents the first fire squad execution in the United States. Only three other prisoners, all in Utah, had been executed in this manner since 1977. 

With posters that read “all life is precious” and “thou shalt not kill,” anti-death penalty demonstrators gathered outside the Columbia jail before to the execution. 

According to South Carolina law, the identity of the executioners are kept secret as witnesses watch from behind bulletproof glass. The state enacted laws guaranteeing the confidentiality of execution team members in 2023.