A South Carolina man convicted of bludgeoning his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death has become the first US death row inmate to be executed by firing squad in the last 15 years.
Brad Sigmon was shot to death just after 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT) on Friday by three state corrections department volunteers firing rifles at his chest with specially designed bullets.
Sigmon, 67, was convicted of murdering David and Gladys Larke with a baseball bat in 2001 before kidnapping his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint. She managed to escape as he shot at her.
He had requested death by firing squad over the other two state-approved methods of execution: electric chair and lethal injection.
Chrysti Shain, of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, said that Sigmon was pronounced dead by a doctor at 18:08 local time.
Three members of the Larke family were present to witness his death, she said, as well as Sigmon’s spiritual adviser.
Sigmon was strapped to a chair, which had a basin underneath to catch blood, witnesses said.
He told witnesses he wanted his final statement “to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty”.
“An eye for an eye was used as justification to the jury for seeking the death penalty,” he added.
“At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that was. Why? Because we no longer live under the Old Testament law but now live under the New Testament.”
After his final statement, a hood was placed over his head.
A curtain that concealed three volunteers opened at 18:01. At 18:05, the trio fired from 15ft (4.6m) away without any countdown.
Jeffrey Collins, a reporter for the Associated Press news agency, said at a news conference that Sigmon had a red bullseye target placed over his heart.
When he was shot, his chest rose and fell several times, the reporter added.
A doctor performed an exam that took about 90 seconds, before declaring him dead at 18:08.
The .308 Winchester Tap Urban bullets used are designed to break apart on impact and cause maximum damage. Medical experts have debated the amount of pain they may cause.
Anna Dobbins, a reporter for WHFF-TV, added that Sigmon wore a black jump suit, but had bare arms that “flexed” when he was shot.
“I did see a splash of blood when the bullets entered his body,” she told the news conference.
She said all the shots were fired simultaneously, and that witnesses were unable to see the guns.
Prison guards also offered witnesses ear plugs to protect their ears from the sound of the shots, added a reporter for the Post and Courier newspaper.
Counselling services are being offered to any prison staff who were traumatised by the execution, said Shain.
Sigmon’s lawyer, Bo King, had been hoping for a last-minute stay of execution by the South Carolina governor and accused the state of withholding information about the lethal injection process.
“Brad only wanted assurances that these drugs were not expired, or diluted, or spoiled—what any of us would want to know about the medication we take, or the food we eat, much less the means of our death,” he said in a statement after his death.
“It is unfathomable that, in 2025, South Carolina would execute one of its citizens in this bloody spectacle.”
King said his client had been suffering from mental illness, and that the friendships he formed in prison are proof he had been rehabilitated.
“Brad is someone who, for his last meal, asked to get three buckets of original recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken so he could share with the guys that he’s incarcerated with on death row,” he told a WYFF-TV earlier on Friday.
“With his last meal, he wanted to share something special with them,” he said, later telling reporters that the request to share had been denied.
Officials later confirmed his last meal was four pieces of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, cheesecake and sweet tea. The meal was served on Wednesday evening.
Since 1977 only three people have died by firing squad, and all three were in the state of Utah. The last case was Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.
Ahead of Sigmon’s execution, anti-death penalty protests held a rally outside the jail in the city of Columbia.
They held signs saying “all life is precious” and “thou shalt not kill”.
The state allows witnesses to observe the death from behind bulletproof glass, but the executioners are hidden from view to protect their identities.
South Carolina passed a law in 2023 requiring that the identities of the execution team members remain secret.
