Convicted Double Murderer Set to Be Executed By Firing Squad — First Time in Over a Decade

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A convicted murderer is set to be executed by firing squad, marking the first time this execution method has been used in the United States in 15 years.

Brad Sigmon of South Carolina, now 67 years old, was convicted of violently killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat while high on crack cocaine in 2001.

He was given a death sentence, and has rejected both lethal injection and electric chair methods.

Sigmon said he sees a firing squad as the best option.

 

Only three inmates have been executed via firing squad since 1977 and all three were in Utah.

On the date of his execution, Sigmon will be strapped to a chair with a hood over his head and a target over his heart. Then, volunteers will use special bullets to carry out the execution.

Here are the details:

The New York Post reported:

A convicted double murderer is set to die by firing squad in South Carolina on Friday — the first execution of its kind in the US in 15 years.

Brad Sigmon, 67, personally requested the unusual punishment after fearing the electric chair would “burn and cook him alive,” his attorney Gerald King wrote in a statement.

He also rejected a lethal injection after three previous inmates took more than 20 minutes to die after receiving the fatal dose of pentobarbital, his lawyers said.

Sigmon became the first South Carolina inmate to choose the state’s new firing squad method of killing, and he’ll become the first inmate to be executed by shooting since 2010.

The killer will be strapped to a chair and have a hood placed over his head and a target placed over his heart in the death chamber.

Three volunteers will fire at him through a small opening about 15 feet away…

Sigmon claimed he was forced to choose a violent death by firing squad because, without more information, he thought his alternatives would be more torturous, according to a stay of execution motion filed by his attorneys with South Carolina’s Supreme Court.

Only three inmates in the US have been executed by firing squad since 1976, with all of them taking place in Utah.

AP added more details:

When a South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat steps into the death row chamber Friday night, it won’t be lethal injection or electrocution that ends his life.

It will be three people holding rifles about 15 feet (4.6 meters) away who will complete his punishment in what will be the United States’ first firing squad execution in 15 years.

Some 46 prisoners have been executed by lethal injection and electrocution in South Carolina since 1985. Brad Sigmon’s execution will be the first by firing squad. Just three inmates — in Utah in 1977, 1996 and 2010 — have faced a firing squad in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Reporters, family members of Sigmon’s victims and his lawyer will view the execution inside the same building used for all executions over the past 35 years, although prison officials say the glass separating the witness room from the death chamber is now bulletproof. Sigmon can give a last statement if he wishes.

Sigmon, 67, is being executed for the 2001 baseball bat killings of his ex-girlfriend’s parents at their home in Greenville County. They were in separate rooms, and Sigmon went back and forth as he beat them to death, investigators said.

He then kidnapped his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint, but she escaped from his car. He shot at her as she ran but missed, according to prosecutors.

In a confession, Sigmon said, “I couldn’t have her. I wasn’t going to let anybody else have her.”



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