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A man from South Carolina convicted for hitting his ex -girlfriend’s parents until death has become the first death inmate in the United States to be executed by the shot team in the last 15 years.
Brad Sigmon was shot dead just after 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT) on Friday by three volunteers shooting rifles on his chest with specially designed bullets.
Sigmon, 67, was convicted of killing David and Gladys Larke with a baseball bat in 2001 before kidnapping his ex -girlfriend at gunpoint. She managed to escape while he shot her.
Sigmon had requested death when firing a squad on the other two execution methods approved by the State: electric chair and lethal injection.
Chrysti Shain, from the South Carolina Corrections Department, said Sigmon was declared dead by a doctor at 18:08 local time.
Three members of the Larke family were present to witness their death, he said.
Before being killed, Sigmon said: “I want my statement of closure to be love and apologies.”
He cited the Bible to denounce the death penalty and said: “We no longer live under the law of the Old Testament, but now we live under the New Testament.”
Sigmon was tied to a chair, which had a basin below to catch blood, witnesses said.
A curtain that hid three volunteers opened at 18:01. At 18:05, the trio fired from 15 feet (4.6m) away without any countdown.
Jeffrey Collins, reporter of the Associated Press news agency, said at a press conference that Sigmon had a Red Bullseye target about his heart.
After reading his final statement, a hood was placed on his head.
When they shot him, his chest got up and fell several times, added the journalist.
A doctor performed an exam that took about 90 seconds, before declaring him dead.
Anna Dobbins, a reporter for Whff-Tv, added that Sigmon wore a black jump suit, but had bare arms that “flexed” when they shot her.
“I saw a blood splash when the bullets entered their body,” he said.
She said that all the shots were shot simultaneously, and that the witnesses could not see the weapons.
Prison Guards also offered witnesses to the plugs to protect their ears from the sound of the shots, added a journalist for the post and Couer newspaper.
Sigmon’s lawyer, Bo King, had been waiting for a last minute execution stay by the governor of South Carolina and accused the state of retention of information on the lethal injection process.
King said his client had been suffering from mental illnesses, and that the friendships he formed in prison are evidence that he had been rehabilitated.
“Brad is someone who, for his last meal, asked to get three cubes of the original Kentucky Fried Chickn recipe to be able to share with the guys with which he is imprisoned in the death corridor,” he told a Wyff-TV the earliest Friday.
“With his last meal, he wanted to share something special with them,” he said.
Since 1977, only three people have died by a shooting squad, and the three were in the state of Utah. The last case was Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.
Before the execution of Sigmon, the anti-death penalty protests celebrated a demonstration outside the prison in the city of Columbia.
They had signs that said “all life is beautiful” and “you will not kill.”
The bullets used are designed to break the impact and cause the maximum damage. Medical experts have discussed the amount of pain they can cause.
The State allows witnesses to observe death from behind bulletproof glass, but the executioners are hidden in view to protect their identities.
South Carolina approved a law in 2023 that requires that the identities of the members of the execution team remain secret.