Three volunteer corrections workers members will level rifles at Sigmon’s chest and fireplace dwell rounds as he sits strapped to a chair, a hood over his head, in line with the state’s execution protocols
Firing squad executes Brad Keith Sigmon in South Carolina
A firing squad in South Carolina executed Brad Keith Sigmon for the beating deaths of his ex-girlfriend’s mother and father in 2001.
Editor’s notice: Brad Keith Sigmon was executed Friday by firing squad. Comply with alongside here.
A South Carolina man who beat his ex-girlfriend’s mother and father to dying in a match of rage is ready to grow to be the primary inmate to be executed by firing squad within the U.S. since 2010 and the primary ever within the state’s trendy historical past on Friday.
Brad Keith Sigmon is predicted to be strapped to a specifically made chair and have a hood over his head whereas three volunteer corrections staffers intention loaded rifles at his coronary heart and every fireplace off a dwell spherical, in line with the state’s execution protocols.
Sigmon, 67, was convicted of the 2001 murders of Gladys and David Larke, who had been overwhelmed to dying with a baseball bat of their small-town dwelling in northwestern South Carolina. Sigmon, who selected the firing squad over deadly injection or the electrical chair, has all the time admitted to killing the Larkes.
“Girls and gents of the jury, I’m responsible,” Sigmon advised jurors at his trial, in line with archived protection in the Greenville News, a part of the USA TODAY Community. “I’ve no excuse for what I did. It’s my fault and I’m not making an attempt guilty no one else for it, and I’m sorry.”
Sigmon’s ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Armstrong, advised USA TODAY − in her first interview within the 24 years since her mother and father’ homicide − that Sigmon’s actions ripped her household aside and that “he ought to reply for what he is achieved,” although she would not consider within the dying penalty.
This is what you might want to find out about Sigmon’s execution, how the firing squad will work and what else his victims’ household has to say.
When and the place will Brad Keith Sigmon be executed?
Sigmon is ready to be executed simply after 6 p.m. ET on the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, South Carolina.
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How will Brad Keith Sigmon be executed?
Sigmon will sit restrained in a steel chair, a hood over his head, within the nook of a room shared by the state’s electrical chair, “which may’t be moved,” in line with the South Carolina Division of Corrections’ execution protocols supplied to USA TODAY.
The firing squad staff − three voluntary corrections workers − will stand behind a wall with loaded rifles 15 toes from Sigmon. The wall can have a gap for the weapons.
“A small intention level shall be positioned over his coronary heart by a member of the execution staff,” the division stated. “After the warden reads the execution order, the staff will fireplace … After the inmate is asserted lifeless, the curtain shall be drawn and witnesses escorted out.”
Witnesses to the execution, which usually contain relations of each the inmate and sufferer, members of the information media, attorneys and jail workers, “will see the right-side profile of the inmate.”
The division stated that bullet-resistant glass has been put in between the dying chamber and the witness room.
What was Brad Keith Sigmon convicted of?
On April 27, 2001, Sigmon confirmed up at David and Gladys Larke’s home with a plan that he hatched whereas doing crack cocaine the evening earlier than: He was going to tie them up and kidnap his ex, he advised police.
As an alternative, he beat the couple to dying with a baseball bat, hitting every of them 9 instances, in line with police and a health worker’s report. Sigmon kidnapped Armstrong in his automobile however she jumped out of the transferring car and was capable of escape, although Sigmon shot her as soon as within the foot earlier than his gun ran out of bullets, in line with court docket data.
Sigmon advised jurors at his 2002 trial that he had no excuse for what he did, saying that when Armstrong fell out of affection with him, it “set me off,” in line with the Greenville Information.
“I used to be obsessed along with her,” he advised jurors. “Did I really like her? Greater than anything on the planet.”
He continued to inform jurors that the dying penalty was in all probability applicable in his case, saying: “I hate what I did.”
“Do I should die? I in all probability do,” he stated. “I don’t need to die … I simply need to dwell for my household’s sake.”
The Larkes’ household says they had been their ‘glue’
Jurors in Sigmon’s homicide trial additionally heard from relations of David and Gladys Larke, who had been 62 and 59, respectively, once they had been killed. Their grownup youngsters wept on the witness stand and spoke of their devastation.
“I’m who I’m due to him (my dad) and my mother,” Darrell Larke stated, in line with the Greenville Information. “He taught me the way to fish, the way to hunt, the way to take pleasure in life, the way to be accountable.”
Armstrong advised USA TODAY this week that her mother and father had been easy nation people who had 5 youngsters and had been all the time looking for everybody. Her mother beloved cooking up a feast for the entire household and her dad “had a very good coronary heart” who was fast to forgive and ask forgiveness.
“They had been the glue of the household,” Armstrong stated, including that they’ve missed the births of a few of their eight grandchildren and 5 great-grand youngsters since they had been murdered. “He took that away.”
She stated she doesn’t plan on attending the execution, however her son, Ricky Sims, told the Greenville News that he shall be there, sporting the pair of shoes that had been the final reward his grandparents ever gave him.
“He’ll pay for what he’s achieved,” Sims stated. “He took away two individuals who would have achieved something for his or her household. They had been the rock of our household … They did not deserve it.”
Who’s Brad Keith Sigmon?
Earlier than the murders, Sigmon was as “a tough employee and a loving brother who labored manufacturing facility shifts as an adolescent to ensure his brothers and sisters might eat,” his legal professional, Gerald “Bo” King, stated in a press release.
He stated that Sigmon turned a “tortured” man due to an undiagnosed psychological sickness that precipitated “irrational and impulsive episodes,” one thing he tried to deal with with avenue medicine.
“And that Brad, who was already fighting natural mind harm and grief from his violent childhood, succumbed to a psychotic break,” King stated. “The jury that sentenced him had no concept of how severely compromised his psychological well being was, or that he was in all probability incompetent even to face trial.”
Armstrong stated that she and Sigmon had been finest pals for 5 years earlier than their romance started and lasted one other 5 years. Armstrong, who had three youngsters when she met Sigmon, stated that whereas he had anger points and slapped her as soon as, she by no means would have imagined him able to the evil he dedicated.
Since he is been in jail, King stated Sigmon has been “reworked” to a repentant, God-loving man and a “peaceable, trusted presence on Loss of life Row.”
“He serves as a casual chaplain to his fellow prisoners,” King stated. “He’s a supply of energy to his siblings and kids. He’s additionally in declining well being and poses a hazard to nobody.”
What’s the trendy historical past of the firing squad within the U.S.?
5 states − South Carolina Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho − have legalized firing squads as an execution methodology, most recently Idaho in 2023.
The final inmate within the U.S. to be killed by firing squad was in 2010, when Utah executed Ronnie Lee Gardner for killing a person throughout a theft. Each different firing squad executions had been in Utah, Gary Mark Gilmore in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996.
Among the many witnesses to Gardner’s execution was an Associated Press reporter who stated that 5 volunteer jail workers members fired at him from about 25 toes away with .30-caliber rifles, aiming at a goal pinned over his chest as he sat in a chair. One of many rifles had a clean so not one of the volunteers knew whether or not they fired a deadly bullet, AP reported.
King, Sigmon’s legal professional, stated in a press release that “there isn’t any justice” with Friday’s execution.
“Every thing about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity − from the selection to the strategy itself − is abjectly merciless,” he stated. “We should always not simply be horrified – we ought to be livid.”
This story has been edited to appropriate the primary reference of the yr of the final firing squad execution.
Contributing: Terry Benjamin II, the Greenville Information
