Brad Sigmon, a South Carolina inmate convicted of the 2001 brutal murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents, is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on March 7.
Sigmon’s execution follows a choice he made after the state’s Supreme Court made firing squad executions legal in 2024.
Sigmon, 45, killed David and Gladys Larke with a baseball bat before kidnapping his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint. Despite a violent escape attempt in which he shot at her, she survived.
After spending years on death row, Sigmon’s execution is set to make him the first person to face death by firing squad in South Carolina, following a controversial legal battle over execution methods.
Firing squad executions were legalized in the state in 2021 but were blocked by a court injunction in 2022.
However, the state’s high court lifted the restrictions last year, and Sigmon’s case marks the first time the method will be used since the law changed.
If carried out, Sigmon’s execution would also make him the first person in the U.S. to be executed by firing squad in over 15 years—since Ronnie Gardner chose this method on June 17, 2010.
READ ALSO: Grimes Accuses Elon Musk of Negligence Toward Their Son’s Health, Warns of Lifelong Impact
The firing squad method involves the condemned person being strapped to a chair with a black hood placed over their head while five shooters, armed with .30 caliber rifles, stand about 20 feet away. One of the shooters is given a blank round to obscure which shooter delivered the fatal shot.
Sigmon’s lawyers indicated that he chose the firing squad over lethal injection due to concerns about the possibility of a prolonged death after witnessing the suffering of other executed inmates in recent months.
They also attempted to delay his execution to examine the autopsy of another inmate, Marion Bowman, who was executed by lethal injection in January, but their request was denied.
The execution is scheduled to take place at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina.
