COLUMBIA, S.C. (WHNS/Gray News) – A South Carolina man was executed Friday night after being on death row for over two decades.
Brad Sigmon, 67, elected to die by firing squad, citing concerns about the suffering he would endure if he picked lethal injection.
Sigmon was sentenced to death in 2002 for beating his ex-girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke, to death with a baseball bat in their Greenville County home.
Authorities said the couple’s daughter had broken up with Sigmon, and he planned to kill her too.
Sigmon ended up abducting her at gunpoint and shot her as she jumped from the car to escape.
Luckily, she survived.
Sigmon went on to steal an RV and evade authorities for 10 days before he was caught at a campground in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to delay Sigmon’s execution. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster also denied clemency for Sigmon.
At 6:19 p.m. ET, witnesses confirmed that Sigmon was executed by firing squad.
Protestors gathered outside of the South Carolina Department of Corrections to oppose the death penalty.
Multiple people, including the brother of the last man in the U.S. to die by firing squad, have spoken out against the execution method.
Since 1977, only three other prisoners in the U.S. have been executed by firing squad, all in Utah, with the last being 15 years ago.
Copyright 2025 WHNS via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.