A South Carolina man, Brad Sigmon, 67, was executed by firing squad on Friday, marking the first such execution in the U.S. in 15 years. Sigmon, convicted in 2001 for the brutal murder of his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat, was put to death at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. According to prison spokeswoman Chrysti Shain, the fatal shots were fired at 6:05 p.m. (2305 GMT), and Sigmon was pronounced dead three minutes later by a physician.
Witnesses described a harrowing scene as Sigmon, dressed in a black jumpsuit, was strapped to a chair with a red bullseye placed over his heart. In his final statement, read by his attorney, Sigmon expressed love and called for Christians to support the end of the death penalty. A hood was placed over his head before volunteers from the South Carolina Department of Corrections fired their rifles from about 15 feet away.
Journalist Anna Dobbins of WYFF News 4 described the execution: “The shots were all fired at once, and there was a splash of blood when the bullets entered his body.”
Sigmon’s attorney, Gerald “Bo” King, condemned the execution as a violent, bloody spectacle, stating, “It is unfathomable that, in 2025, South Carolina would execute one of its citizens in this bloody spectacle.”
Sigmon had been given a choice between lethal injection, the electric chair, or the firing squad. His lawyer said that Sigmon selected the firing squad after the other options were deemed too cruel, citing risks of prolonged death from lethal injection and the horrors of the electric chair.
The last U.S. execution by firing squad was in Utah in 2010, and five states—South Carolina, Utah, Idaho, Mississippi, and Oklahoma—currently allow this method as an alternative. The execution raises questions about the future of the death penalty, with 23 states having abolished it and moratoriums in place in several others.