A shooting squad In South Carolina executed Brad Keith Sigmon Friday for the death by blows of the parents of his ex-girlfriend, marking the First execution of the shooting squad In the state of modern history and the first in the United States since 2010.
Sigmon was attached to a specially manufactured chair and had a hood above his head while three members of the staff of the correctional services of the volunteers targeted rifles loaded with his heart and each pulled live rounds, according to several media witnesses who spoke at a press conference thereafter. He was declared dead at 6:08 p.m., witnesses said.
“Brad's death was horrible and violent,” said Gerald “Bo” King, Sigmon lawyer and execution witness in a statement. “It is unfathomable that in 2025, the South Carolina would perform one of its citizens in this bloody spectacle.”
The execution occurred shortly after the Supreme Court of the United States rejected Sigmon's last appeal, and the Republican Governor of South Carolina Henry McMaster refused to give him a leniency.
Sigmon, 67, was found guilty of the 2001 murders Gladys and David Larkewho were beaten to death with a baseball bat in their small town in the northwest of Southern Carolina. Sigmon, who chose the shooting team on lethal injection or the electric chair, has always admitted having killed the Larkes.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am guilty,” Sigmon told jurors during his trial, according to an archived coverage The Greenville NewsPart of the USA Today network. “I have no excuse for what I did. It is my fault and I am not trying to blame anyone else, and I'm sorry.”
On Friday, during his last words, Sigmon listed four biblical quotes which, according to him, showed that “any part God in the New Testament gives man the authority to kill another man”.
“I want my closing declaration to be a love and a call to my Christian colleagues to help us end the death penalty,” said Sigmon through his lawyer. “We are now under the grace and mercy of God.”
Sigmon's ex -girlfriend, Rebecca Armstrong, told USA Today – in her first interview in the 24 years since the murder of her parents – that Sigmon's actions have torn his family but that she did not agree with her execution, saying that death should be in the hands of God.
Here's what you need to know Sigmon executionIncluding more on the rare method of the shooting team and what the family of its victims has to say else.
How worked the method of execution of the shooting squad
According to witnesses, in the corner of a room shared by the electric chair of the state, was seated and retained in a metal chair, a hood above the head, in the corner of a room shared by the state chair of the state.
The shooting team – Three members of the staff of volunteer correctional services – stood behind a wall with rifles loaded 15 feet from Sigmon. The wall has an opening for weapons.
A small target was placed on Sigmon's heart, after which his lawyer read his last words, the director ordered the execution and the team fired, the witnesses said. The bullets all seemed to hit his chest on his heart, said the journalist of Associated Press Jeffrey Collins.
“It was instant,” said Collins. “When the shots were fired, it was very strong, it was very shocking … I think that at that time, everyone in the room was in full … There was only one place where I could see damage, which makes me think that they (the balls) were all grouped together.”
Sigmon chose the shooting team on the electric chair or lethal injection, with its lawyer citing “prolonged and potentially tortuous deaths” caused by the recent state execution medication and the barbarism of an “old electric chair, which would burn it and cook alive”.
“He chose the shooting team knowing that three bullets would break his bones and destroy his heart,” King said on Friday. “But that was the only choice he had.”
The State defended the constitutionality of all its methods of execution in the judicial archives, but the office of the attorney general of Caroline du Sud did not respond to several requests from USA Today for additional comments.
Southern Caroline shooting squad: Does the “barbarian” method make a return?
What is the modern story of the shooting team in the United States?
Five states – South CarolinaMississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho – legalized the shooting teams as an execution method, More recently Idaho in 2023.
The latest detainee in the United States was killed by the shooting team before Friday in 2010, when Utah executed Ronnie Lee Gardner for killing a man during a flight. The other two executions of the shooting team were in Utah, Gary Mark Gilmore in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996.
Among the witnesses of Gardner's execution, there was An associated journalist Who said that five volunteer prison staff fired him for about 25 feet with caliber rifles .30, targeting a pinned target on his chest while he was sitting on a chair. One of the rifles had a white, so none of the volunteers knew if they shot a deadly bullet, reported.
King, Sigmon's lawyer, said in a statement before Friday execution that with him, “there is no justice”.
“Everything about this barbaric atrocity and sanctioned by the State-from choice to the method itself-is abjemly cruel,” he said. “We must not be horrified – we must be furious.”
He argued that Sigmon was a man “tortured” at the time of murders due to an unmatched mental illness that caused “irrational and impulsive episodes”, something he tried to deal with street medicines.
“And that Brad, who already had trouble with organic brain lesions and the sorrow of his violent childhood, succumbed to a psychotic break,” said King. “The jury that condemned him did not know how seriously his mental health was compromised, or that he was probably incompetent, even to be judged.”
After the execution, he said that in 23 years in the death corridor, Sigmon had not committed any violence and “devoted himself every day to prayer and repentance”.
“Brad spent hours kneeling on the ground of his cell so that he could write letters to family and friends for whom he was a source of love and support,” King said. “Brad's love for his brothers (in the death corridor), his family, his friends and the men and the women who kept him are undeniable. It is a pity that the South Carolina did not experience the example that Brad gave for us all during his last days.”
Who is Brad Keith Sigmon? Learn more about the man of Southern Carolina who chose the shooting team
What was Brad Keith Sigmon's last meal?
Sigmon's latest meal was fried chicken, green beans, potato puree with sauce, cookies, cheesecake and sweet tea, said the Corrections department.
King said that Sigmon had asked for three bucket buckets from Kentucky to the original recipe so that he “could feed men locked up with him” but “this request has been refused”.
What was Brad Keith Sigmon convicted?
On April 27, 2001, Sigmon presented himself at David and Gladys Larke's house with a plan he developed by crack the previous night: he was going to attach them and kidnap his ex, he told the police.
Instead, he beat the death couple with a baseball bat, hitting each of them nine times, depending on the police and a medical examiner report. Sigmon Kidnapped Armstrong in his car, but she jumped from the moving vehicle and was able to escape, although Sigmon pulled her once in the foot before his weapon is short of bullets, according to the judicial archives.
Sigmon told the jurors during his 2002 trial that he had no excuse for what he had done, saying that when Armstrong fell in love with him, he “triggered me”, according to The Greenville News.
“I was obsessed with her,” he said to the jurors. “Did I love her? More than anything else in the world.”
He continued to tell the jurors that the death penalty was probably appropriate in his case, saying: “I hate what I did.”
“Do I deserve to die?” I probably do it, “he said.” I don't want to die … I just want to live for the good of my family. “”
Who were Gladys and David Larke? The parents of the small town of 5 killed by Brad Keith Sigmon
The Larkes family says they were their “glue”
Armstrong told USA Today this week that his parents were simple country folks that had five children and still looking for everyone. Her mother, who was 59 years old when she was killed, loved cooking a party for the whole family. His father, who was 62, “had a good heart” who was quick to forgive and ask for forgiveness.
“They were family glue,” said Armstrong, adding that they had missed the births of some of their eight grandchildren and five children from the great-grandfight since they were murdered. “He won that.”
She did not attend the execution, saying that she was finally able to forgive Sigmon through the love of God and the council of a Christian psychiatrist.
“The Bible tells you that I know that she says” an eye for an eye “and” a tooth for a tooth “, but if you read there,” revenge is not mine, says the Lord, revenge is that of God, “she said.” I don't think someone is put to death will bring me closer. “
Rebecca Barbare, who now goes by Rebecca Armstrong, sits down and looks at the lawyers talking about testimony to her ex-little friend Brad Keith Sigmon on July 18, 2002.
But, she added, she hoped that it would bring a certain relief.
“I miss my mom and dad,” said Armstrong, who had broken with Sigmon before the killings and never gave an interview on crimes until she talked with USA Today this week. “I couldn't see them age. I couldn't take care of them. My brothers and sisters, we missed this.
Sigmon was the Second detainee executed in South Carolina this year and the Sixth in the United States
This article originally appeared on USA Today: Execution of the shooting team: Brad Keith Sigmon executed in South Carolina
