Shooting squad uses “Bloody Wonder” to perform Brad Keith Sigmon in South Carolina

A South Carolina shooting team was killed by Brad Keith Sigmon on Friday after the assault of its ex-girlfriend’s parents, the first shooting squad in the state’s modern history and the first since 2010.

Sigmun was tied to a specially made chair with a cover on his head, while three volunteer corrections officers aimed to wear a rifle in his heart, each of whom drove a live tour, according to several news media witnesses. Witnesses said he was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m.

“Brad’s death is terrifying and violent,” Sigmon’s attorney and execution witness Gerald “Bo” King said in a statement. “It’s incredible that in 2025, South Carolina will execute one of its citizens in this bloody wonder.”

The execution comes shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court denies Sigmon’s last remaining appeal, Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster refused to give him leniency.

Sigmon, 67, was convicted of murders of Gladys and David Larke in 2001, who were beaten to death by a baseball bat in a small town house in northwest South Carolina. Sigmon chose the shooting squad over the deadly injection or electric chair, and he always admitted to killing the lark.

“I’m very introverted, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” Sigmon told the jurors during the trial, according to a archived report by Greenville News. “I have no excuses for what I do.”

In his last sentence on Friday, Sigmun listed four Bible words, saying: “God in the New Testament has no power to kill another man anywhere.”

Sigmon said through his attorney: “I want my end statement to be one of love and call on my Christians to help us end the death penalty. We are now under the grace and mercy of God.”

Sigmon’s ex-girlfriend Rebecca Armstrong told USA Today – In the first interview in the 24th year since the murder of parents, Sigmon’s moves tore her family apart, but she disagreed with his execution, saying death should be in the hands of God.

Here’s what you need to know about Sigmon’s execution, which includes more information about the rare shooting squad method and what else his victim’s family says.

How the shooting squad performs works

Sigmon sat in a metal chair on a hood above his head, at the corner of the room shared by the state’s electric chairs, according to executive witnesses.

The shooting squad – three voluntary correction personnel – stood behind a wall 15 feet from Sigmon. The wall has openings for weapons.

Witnesses said the warden ordered executions and the team was fired, and his lawyer read a small target, and after that his lawyer read his last sentence. Associated Press reporter Jeffrey Collins said that bullets seemed to hit him in the chest.

“It’s instantaneous,” Collins said. “When the shot was fired, it was loud and very shocking…I think everyone in the room backed back then… There was only one place I could see any damage, so let me think they (the bullets) were all together.”

Sigmon chose the shooting squad in electric chairs or a deadly injection, and his lawyers were responsible for “long and potentially tormented deaths” caused by the state’s recent executions of drugs and “ancient electric chairs” that would burn and burn him. ”

“He chose the shooting team and knew three bullets would smash his bones and destroy his heart,” King said Friday. “But that was his only option.”

The state defended the constitutionality of all its methods of implementation in court records, but the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office did not respond to multiple requests from USA Today for further comment.

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Five states – South Carolina, Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho – legalize shooting squads into execution methods, most recently in 2023 Idaho.

The last prisoner in the United States was killed by the prisoner who was fired before Friday, 2010, when Utah killed a man during the robbery when Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed. The other two shooting teams were executed in Utah, Gary Mark Gilmore in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996.

Among the witnesses executed by Gardner, an Associated Press reporter said five volunteer prison workers fired at him from a .30-caliber rifle about 25 feet away, aiming at a target, and his chest was fixed to his chest as he sat in a chair. One of the rifles had a blank space, so no volunteer knew if they fired a deadly bullet, the AP reported.

“There is no justice,” Sigmon’s attorney King said in a statement ahead of Friday’s execution.

“From the choice to the method itself, this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocities – very cruel.” “We should not be afraid – we should be angry.”

He once argued that Sigmon was a “torture” person when he killed someone because the undiagnosed mental illness caused “unreasonable and impulsive plots”, something he tried to treat with street drugs.

“That Brad, who had been struggling with organic brain damage and grief during his violent childhood, succumbed to mental illness,” King said. “The jury sentenced him was not aware that his mental health was severely damaged, or that he could not even stand trial.”

After the execution, he said that Sigmon did not commit any violence on his 23-year death row and “dedicated to prayer and repentance every day.”

“Brad spent hours kneeling on the floor of his cell so that he could write to his family and friends who have always been loved and supported,” King said. “Brad’s love for his brother (on the death row), his family, his friends, and the men and women who guard him were undeniable. Unfortunately, South Carolina did not endure the example that Brad sets for us all in his last days.”

Who is Brad Keith Sigmon? More information about South Carolina men who chose the shooting squad

What was Brad Keith Sigmon’s last meal?

Sigmon’s last meal was fried chicken, mung beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, cookies, cheesecakes and sweet tea, the Department of Corrections.

King said Sigmon asked for three barrels of original recipes Kentucky fried chicken so that “he could feed these people to lock in with him” but “rejected the request.”

What was Brad Keith Sigmon convicted?

On April 27, 2001, Sigmon’s plan to hatch while doing cocaine the night before appeared in David and Gladys Larke’s house: He told police that he intended to tie them up and kidnap him the day before.

Instead, he beat the couple with a baseball bat, defeating them nine times, according to reports from police and medical examiners. Court records show Sigmon kidnapped Armstrong in his car but she jumped out of the moving vehicle and was able to escape, even though Sigmon shot her foot in the gun and then his gun ran off the bullet.

According to Greenville News, Sigmon told jurors at the 2002 trial that he had no excuse for what he did, saying that it “stands me out” when Armstrong’s love for him fell out.

He told the juror: “I’m obsessed with her. Do I love her? It’s more important than anything else in the world.”

He went on to tell jurors that the death penalty might be appropriate in his case, saying, “I hate what I did.”

“Should I die? I might do that,” he said. “I don’t want to die…I just want to live for my family.”

Who are Gladys and David Lark? 5 small-town parents killed by Brad Keith Sigmon

Lux’s family says they’re their “glue”

Armstrong told USA Today this week that her parents are simple country people who have five children and are always looking for everyone. Her mom was killed when she was 59 and loved to cook a feast for the whole family. Her 62-year-old father “has a kind heart” and quickly forgives and forgives.

“They are the glue for the family,” Armstrong said, adding that they missed the birth of eight grandchildren and five great-granddaughters since their murder. “He took it.”

She did not participate in the execution, saying she was able to eventually forgive Sigmun through God’s love and counseling from Christian psychiatrists.

She said, “The Bible tells you that I know it says ‘eyes to the eyes’ and ‘tooths of teeth’, but if you are reading there, say ‘revenge is not mine, revenge is God’s. ‘I don’t think anyone dies will shut me off. ”

However, she added, she hopes it will bring some relief.

“I miss my mom and dad,” Armstrong said. Armstrong broke up with Sigmon before the killing until before talking to the United States this week today. “I didn’t see them getting older. I didn’t take care of them. My siblings, we missed it.”

Sigmon is the second prisoner in South Carolina this year, sixth in the United States

This article originally appeared in USA Today: Shooting Squad Execution: Brad Keith Sigmon in South Carolina