A South Carolina man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s mother and father with a baseball bat in 2001 was executed by firing squad early Friday night – a way used for the primary time in 15 years within the U.S.
Brad Sigmon, 67, was pronounced lifeless at 6:08 p.m. after being shot by three volunteer jail workers on the Broad River Correctional Establishment in Columbia, in keeping with the Related Press.
Sigmon, who beforehand admitted to killing the couple as a result of his ex-girlfriend refused to get again to him, was blindfolded and strapped to a chair with a goal on his chest.
Brad Sigmon was convicted of beating to demise his estranged girlfriend’s mother and father in Greenville County in 2001. (South Carolina Division of Corrections through AP)
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The executioners, armed with rifles about 15 ft away, fired bullets into his coronary heart.
The volunteers all fired on the similar time by openings in a wall, in keeping with the AP. A dozen witnesses, seated in a room separated from the chamber by bullet-resistant glass, couldn’t see the executioners.
Only a few hours earlier than the demise sentence, the U.S. Supreme Court docket denied an emergency movement to droop the execution due to South Carolina’s insurance policies surrounding secretive deadly injection particulars.
Gov. Henry McMaster denied clemency on Friday previous to the execution. (Joshua Boucher/The State/Tribune Information Service through Getty Photos)
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and South Carolina Legal professional Common Alan Wilson signed off on the motion, regardless of pleas from his attorneys to commute the demise sentence to life in jail.
Sigmon’s attorneys argued he was a mannequin prisoner and the killings occurred whereas he was battling extreme psychological sickness.
He selected to die by firing squad, citing fears concerning the electrical chair and deadly injection, in keeping with his illustration.
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The double assassin’s final meal was three buckets of authentic recipe Kentucky Fried Rooster from KFC, his lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King, advised WYFF4.
Sigmon’s final meal consisted of Kentucky Fried Rooster.
He reportedly ordered multiple bucket so “he may share with the fellows he’s incarcerated with on demise row,” King advised the outlet.
Sigmon mentioned he killed victims Gladys Larke, 59, and David Larke, 62, after they evicted him from a trailer they owned.
He then unsuccessfully kidnapped his ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Armstrong, who jumped out of his transferring automotive as he shot at her, prosecutors mentioned.
“My intention was to kill her after which myself,” Sigmon mentioned in a confession typed out by a detective after his arrest. “That was my intention all alongside. If I couldn’t have her, I wasn’t going to let anyone else have her. And I knew it acquired to the purpose the place I couldn’t have her.”
Firing squad graphic (AP)
Armstrong advised USA As we speak this week Sigmon “ought to reply for what he is carried out,” noting his actions ripped her household aside.
The murdered mother and father of 5 missed the births of a number of grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.
Armstrong, who would not imagine within the demise penalty, mentioned she wouldn’t attend the execution.
This picture offered by the South Carolina Division of Corrections exhibits the state’s demise chamber in Columbia, S.C., together with the electrical chair, proper, and a firing squad chair, left. (South Carolina Division of Corrections through AP)
Her son, Ricky Sims, advised the Greenville Information he can be there, sporting a pair of shoes that had been the final reward his grandparents ever gave him.
“He will pay for what he’s carried out,” Sims advised the outlet. “He took away two individuals who would have carried out something for his or her household. They had been the rock of our household … They did not deserve it.”
Executions in South Carolina resumed in September, when the state – as soon as one of many leaders in executions – ended a 13-year halt in administering the demise penalty.
It’s one among simply 5 states that authorize using firing squads in sure circumstances.
The chair through which John Albert Taylor was strapped into earlier than being executed by a firing squad on Jan. 26, 1996, in Utah. (Lee Celano/Reuters)
Solely three inmates, all in Utah, have been killed by firing squad within the U.S. because the demise penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Ronnie Gardner was the final prisoner to be executed by firing squad in 2010.
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Twenty-five executions had been carried out within the U.S. final yr. 5 have already been carried out in 2025, per the Demise Penalty Data Heart.
King didn’t instantly reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark.
Fox Information Digital’s Michael Dorgan and The Related Press contributed to this report.
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