A South Carolina death row inmate has made a rare and shocking choice — he’s opted to be executed by firing squad. Brad Sigmon, who was convicted of brutally killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat in 2001, is scheduled to die on March 7.
The murders happened in Greenville County, and after killing David and Gladys Larke, Sigmon reportedly kidnapped his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint. She managed to escape from his moving car, and though he fired shots at her, she survived.
If the execution goes ahead, Sigmon will be the first person in South Carolina to be put to death by firing squad since the state’s Supreme Court legalized the method in July 2024. This would also mark the first firing squad execution in the United States since 2010.
In this method, the inmate is tied to a chair and a black hood is placed over their head. Five shooters, standing 20 feet away, take aim with .30 caliber rifles — but one of them is given blank rounds so no one knows who fired the fatal shot.
Sigmon’s decision to choose this method over lethal injection or the electric chair comes after concerns about recent botched executions. His lawyers argued that South Carolina’s lethal injections have led to prolonged and painful deaths, with inmates remaining alive on the gurney for over 20 minutes.
Gerald “Bo” King, one of Sigmon’s attorneys, said his client felt the firing squad was his best option under the circumstances. “Brad knows what being shot will do to his body, but he doesn’t want his family or the witnesses to suffer through a drawn-out execution,” King explained.
Sigmon’s execution will take place at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina, unless any last-minute appeals change the course of events.
