Americas

Americas

South Carolina man executed by firing squad is the first US prisoner killed this way in 15 years

08 March 2025 10:40 (UTC +04:00)

A South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s 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, APA reports citing Associated Press.

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.

Sigmon’s 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 Carolina’s 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.