Brad Sigmon, a 67-year-old South Carolina man, was shot Friday, the first shooting squad executed in the United States in 15 years. Sigmon was executed at the Broad River Correctional agency in Columbia for murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 2001 with a baseball bat, according to South Carolina prison spokeswoman Chrysti Shain. Shain said the deadly shooting was fired at 2305 GMT at 6:05 p.m. GMT, and three minutes later Sigmun was pronounced dead by doctors.
The reporter who witnessed the execution called the scene Sigmon, wearing a black jumpsuit, tied to a chair in the death room, and had a small Red Bulldog in his heart. In the final statement, his lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King, read, Sigmon expressed his message of love and urged Christians to help end the death penalty. Before the shooting squad (volunteer from the South Carolina Department of Corrections), he placed a hood on his head, passing the rifle through a gap in the wall from about 15 feet away.
“The cameras were shot immediately,” said Anna Dobbins, a reporter for Wyff News 4.
King describes Sigmun’s execution as fearful and violent, calling it a bleeding wonder. “What’s incredible is that in 2025, South Carolina will execute one of its citizens in this bloody wonder,” he said.
Sigmun chose between a deadly injection, a power chair or a shooting squad. His lawyer said he chose the shooting team after being placed in an “impossible” position. “If he chooses to have a fatal injection, he risked the long-term deaths suffered by all three South Carolina men,” King said, noting that the electric chair “would burn and cook him,” calling both options “weird.”
In the United States, the last execution of the shooting squad was in Utah in 2010, after cases were conducted in 1996 and 1977. Since the Supreme Court resumed the 1976 death penalty, fatal injections have been the primary method of execution. However, some states have turned to alternative approaches due to concerns about lethal injection regimens. Alabama has recently implemented it with nitrogen four times, a method that UN experts denounced as cruel and inhumane.
Currently, five states – South Carolina, Utah, Idaho, Mississippi and Oklahoma – have authorized the shooting squad as another method of execution. So far this year, 25 times in 2024, the United States has executed six times. The death penalty was lifted in 23 U.S. states, while California, Oregon and Pennsylvania suspended the death penalty. President Donald Trump, a strong advocate of the death penalty, called for its use to expand, noting that it should be used “for the worst crimes.”
