South Carolina: Brad Sigmon executed – first execution by firing squad in 15 years
On Friday evening, 67-year-old Brad Sigmon was executed by firing squad in the US state of South Carolina. He was sentenced to death for killing the parents of his ex-girlfriend with a baseball bat in 2001. He had planned to kidnap the daughter for a romantic weekend and kill her and then himself.
In South Carolina, offenders have a choice of three methods of execution: the electric chair, lethal injection and firing squad. According to his lawyers, Sigmon opted for firing squad because the electric chair would “cook him alive” and lethal injection would “drown” him – autopsies after lethal injection repeatedly found a large buildup of fluid in the lungs of those executed.
Three prison volunteers carried out the execution of Brad Sigmon with rifles. They stood barely five meters away from where the condemned man sat in the state’s execution chamber, shackled to a chair and with a hood over his head.
The prison staff all fired simultaneously through openings in a wall. They were not visible to about a dozen witnesses in a room separated from the chamber by bulletproof glass. Sigmon took several deep breaths in the two minutes that passed between putting on his hood and the shots being fired. The shots caused a loud, shrill bang that made the witnesses flinch.
When he was hit, Sigmon tensed his arms briefly, and the mark of the heart as a “target” was blasted from his chest. He appeared to take another breath or two, with a red mark visible on his chest. About a minute later, a doctor examined Sigmon for 90 seconds before pronouncing him dead.
Witnesses to the execution included three family members of the victims, Sigmon’s attorney and spiritual advisor, a representative from the district attorney’s office, a sheriff’s investigator and three members of the media. It was the fourth execution by firing squad in the US since the death penalty was reinstated in the second half of the 1970s. The previous three were all carried out in Utah, most recently 15 years ago.