South Carolina Firing Squad Execution Called 'Bloody Spectacle'

A South Carolina firing squad executed Brad Sigmon for the beating deaths of his ex-girlfriend's parents, the first firing squad execution in the state in modern history and the first in the U.S. since 2010. Sigmon was strapped to a special chair and had a hood over his head while three volunteer corrections staffers aimed loaded rifles at his heart and each fired. "Brad’s death was horrifying and violent," said his attorney, Gerald “Bo” King. "It is unfathomable that, in 2025, South Carolina would execute one of its citizens in this bloody spectacle." The U.S. Supreme Court denied Sigmon's last remaining appeal, and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declined to grant him clemency, reports USA Today.

Sigmon, 67, was convicted of the 2001 murders of Gladys and David Larke, who were beaten to death with a baseball bat in their home in northwestern South Carolina. Sigmon, who chose the firing squad over lethal injection or the electric chair, always admitted to killing the Larkes. He told jurors. "I have no excuse for what I did. It’s my fault and I’m not trying to blame nobody else for it, and I’m sorry." During his last words Friday, Sigmon listed four Bible quotes that he said showed that "nowhere does God in the New Testament give man the authority to kill another man." Sigmon's ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Armstrong, said Sigmon's actions ripped her family apart but that she didn't agree with his execution, saying death should be in God's hands. Sigmon chose the firing squad over the electric chair or lethal injection, with his attorney citing "prolonged and potentially torturous deaths" caused by the state's recent execution drug and the barbarity of an "ancient electric chair, which would burn and cook him alive." "He chose the firing squad knowing that three bullets would shatter his bones and destroy his heart," King said. "But that was the only choice he had."