South Carolina Man Executed by Firing Squad -Its Barbaric

[Ladybbird]

South Carolina Man Executed by Firing Squad is The First US Prisoner Killed This Way in 15 Years

Desperate final plea of death row inmate Brad Sigmon for a last-minute stay of execution before he's shot dead in firing squad

MailOnline 8 MAR 2025






A South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriends parents with a baseball bat was executed by firing squad Friday, the first U.S. prisoner in 15 years to die by that method, which he saw as preferable to the electric chair or lethal injection.


Three volunteer prison employees used rifles to carry out the execution of Brad Sigmon 67, who was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m.

Sigmon killed David and Gladys Larke in their Greenville County home in 2001 in a botched plot to kidnap their daughter. He told police he planned to take her for a romantic weekend, then kill her and himself.

Sigmons lawyers said he chose the firing squad because the electric chair would cook him alive, and he feared that a lethal injection of pentobarbital into his veins would send a rush of fluid and blood into his lungs and drown him.

The details of South Carolinas lethal injection method are kept secret in South Carolina, and Sigmon unsuccessfully asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to pause his execution because of that.

On Friday, Sigmon wore a black jumpsuit with a hood over his head and a white target with a red bullseye over his chest.

The armed prison employees stood 15 feet (4.6 meters) from where he sat in the states death chamber - the same distance as the backboard is from the free-throw line on a basketball court. Visible in the same small room was the states unused electric chair. The gurney used to carry out lethal injections had been rolled away.

The volunteers all fired at the same time through openings in a wall. They were not visible to about a dozen witnesses in a room separated from the chamber by bullet-resistant glass. Sigmon made several heavy breaths during the two minutes that elapsed from when the hood was placed to the shots being fired.

The shots, which sounded like they were fired at the same time, made a loud, jarring bang that caused witnesses to flinch. His arms briefly tensed when he was shot, and the target was blasted off his chest. He appeared to give another breath or two with a red stain on his chest, and small amounts of tissue could be seen from the wound during those breaths.

A doctor came out about a minute later and examined Sigmon for 90 seconds before declaring him dead.

Witnesses included three family members of the Larkes. Also present were Sigmons attorney and spiritual advisor, a representative from the prosecuting solicitors office, a sheriffs investigator and three members of the news media.








'Its very barbaric': Brother of man put to death by firing squad




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx8bCAO5eZc


Witnesses speak following death row inmate execution




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0J_Bxxj2tk







Randy Gardner, hold the ashes of his brother Ronnie