Featured Image Credit: South Carolina Department of Corrections
Topics: Crime, True Crime
Jen Thomas
A prisoner on death row has explained why he has chosen to be executed in a method that hasn't been used in 15 years.
In 2001, Brad Sigmon, 67, was convicted of horrifically beating his ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Barbare's, parents William and Gladys Larke to death with a baseball bat in their home, before kidnapping Barbare at gunpoint and shot at her as she escaped from his car.
Sigmon was given the death penalty, and despite numerous unsuccessful appeals, his scheduled date set to be 7 March, 2025.
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In accordance with South Carolina's law, Sigmon has chosen to opt for an execution by firing squad, making him the first inmate to be executed via this method in South Carolina, and the fourth in the US overall since 2010.
Sigmon opted for firing squad over the electric chair or lethal injection, with his legal team now sharing his reasoning behind the decision.
His attorney, Gerald 'Bo' King explained (via NBC News): “The choice Brad faced today was impossible. Unless he elected lethal injection or the firing squad, he would die in South Carolina’s ancient electric chair, which would burn and cook him alive. But the alternative is just as monstrous.”
King said the lethal injection wasn't an option after the way the procedure went for the last few inmates, saying his client 'risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September—three men Brad knew and cared for—who remained alive, strapped to a gurney, for more than 20 minutes'.
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The attorney continued: "The only choice that remained is the firing squad, Brad has no illusions about what being shot will do to his body. He does not wish to inflict that pain on his family, the witnesses or the execution team."
Sigmon is due to be put to death at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, where the South Carolina Department of Corrections released a statement in 2022 confirming that the execution chamber had 'been renovated to include the capacity to perform an execution by firing squad'.
"The chamber now includes a chair in which inmates will sit if they choose execution by firing squad. The chair is in a corner of the room away from the current electric chair, which cannot be moved." it continues.
The execution will be carried out by a firing squad made up of three volunteers who work for the Department Of Corrections, and they will be armed with rifles containing live ammunition, which will be fired upon the warden's conclusion of the execution order.