The firing squad executes Brad Keith Sigman

Brad Keith Sigman

According to the state’s execution protocol, three volunteer corrections employees would point rifles at Sigmon’s chest and fire at him while he sat strapped into a chair with a hood over his head.

Editor’s note: Brad Keith Sigman was executed by firing squad on Friday. Read here.

A South Carolina man who beat his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death in a fit of rage is set to become the first inmate to be executed by firing squad in the U.S. since 2010, and the first to do so in the state’s modern history, on Friday.

According to the state’s execution protocol, Brad Keith Sigmon will be strapped into a specially made chair and a hood will be placed over his head while three volunteer corrections employees point loaded rifles at his heart and each fire one shot.

Sigmon, 67, was convicted in 2001 of the murders of Gladys and David Larke, who were beaten to death with a baseball bat in their small home in northwestern South Carolina. Sigmon, who chose the firing squad rather than lethal injection or the electric chair, has always admitted to killing the Larkes.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I plead guilty,” Sigmon told jurors at his trial, according to archived coverage in the Greenville News, part of the USA TODAY Network. “I have no excuse for what I did. It’s my fault and I don’t want to blame anybody else for it, and I’m sorry.”

When and where will Brad Keith Sigman be executed?

Sigmon is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m. Eastern time at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina.

How will Brad Keith Sigman be executed?

According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections’ execution protocol provided to USA TODAY, Sigmon will be seated in a metal chair, hooded over his head, in the corner of a room shared by the state’s electric chair, “which cannot be moved.” The firing squad team — three volunteer corrections employees — will stand behind a wall with loaded rifles, 15 feet from Sigmon. The wall will have a hole for the weapons.

“A small target will be placed above his heart by a member of the execution team,” the department said. “After the warden reads the execution order, the team will fire… After the inmate is pronounced dead, the curtain will be removed and witnesses will be escorted outside.”

Witnesses to an execution, which typically include family members of both the inmate and the victim, members of the news media, attorneys and prison staff, “will see the inmate’s right-side profile.”

Bullet-resistant glass has been installed between the death chamber and the witness room, the department said.

For what crime was Brad Keith Sigman convicted?

On April 27, 2001, Sigmon came to the home of David and Gladys Larke with a plan he had hatched while smoking crack cocaine the previous night: He told police he was going to tie them up and kidnap his ex-wife.

Instead, he killed the couple with a baseball bat, striking each of them nine times, according to police and a medical examiner’s report. Sigmon kidnapped Armstrong in his car, but she jumped out of the moving vehicle and managed to escape, though Sigmon shot her in the leg once before his gun ran out of bullets, according to court records.

According to the Greenville News, Sigmon told the jury at his 2002 trial that he had no excuse for what he did, saying that when Armstrong stopped loving him, it “tormented me.” “I was obsessed with her,” he told the jury. “Did I love her? More than anything in the world.” He continued to tell the jury that the death penalty was probably appropriate in his case, saying: “I hate what I did.” “Do I deserve to die? Maybe I deserve to die,” he said. “I don’t want to die … I just want to live for the sake of my family.”

Larks family says he was their ‘glue’

The jury in Sigman’s murder trial also heard from family members of David and Gladys Larke, who were 62 and 59, respectively, when he was killed. Their adult children cried on the witness stand and spoke of their devastation.

“I am who I am because of them (my father) and my mother,” Darrell Larke said, according to the Greenville News. “They taught me how to fish, how to hunt, how to enjoy life, how to be responsible.”

Armstrong told USA Today this week that her parents were simple country folks who had five children and always took care of everyone. Her mother loved to cook a feast for the whole family and her father was “a good-hearted man” who was quick to forgive and apologize.

“They were the unifiers of the family,” Armstrong said, adding that they missed the births of their eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren because they were murdered. “He took that away.”

She said she doesn’t plan to go to the gallows, but her son, Ricky Sims, told the Greenville News that he will go there, wearing the pair of shoes his grandparents gave him as his last gift.

“He will pay a price for what he did,” Sims said. “He took away two people who would do anything for their family. They were the foundation of our family … They didn’t deserve this.”

Who is Brad Keith Sigman?

His attorney, Gerald “Bo” King, said in a statement that before the killings, Sigmon “was a hard-working and loving brother who worked in a factory as a teenager to feed his brothers and sisters.”

He said Sigman became a “tyrannical” person because he had an undiagnosed mental illness that caused “irrational and impulsive episodes” that he tried to treat with street drugs.

“And Brad, who was already struggling with organic brain damage and grief from his violent childhood, succumbed to a mental disorder,” King said. “The jury that sentenced him had no idea how severely affected his mental health was, or perhaps even that he was incompetent to stand trial.”

Armstrong said she and Sigman were best friends for five years before their romance began and lasted another five years. Armstrong, who had three children when she met Sigman, said that although he had anger issues and slapped her once, she never imagined he could do the evil he did.

King said that since he has been in prison, Sigman has “transformed” into a repentant, God-loving man and “a peaceful, trustworthy presence on death row.”

“He serves as an unofficial pastor for his fellow inmates,” King said. “He is a source of strength for his siblings and children. His health is also declining and he is not a threat to anyone.”

What is the modern history of the firing squad in America?

Five states – South Carolina Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho – have legalised firing squads as an execution method, most recently in Idaho in 2023.

The last prisoner to be executed by firing squad in the US was in 2010, when Utah executed Ronnie Lee Gardner for killing a man during a robbery. Both of the other executions by firing squad were in Utah, Gary Mark Gilmore in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996.

Witnesses to Gardner’s execution included a reporter from the Associated Press, who reported that five volunteer prison employees shot at him from about 25 feet away with .30-caliber rifles, aiming at his chest as he sat in a chair. One of the rifles was unloaded, so none of the volunteers knew whether they fired the fatal shot, the AP reported.

King, Sigmon’s attorney, said in a statement that Friday’s execution “represents no justice.”

“Everything about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity — from the choices to the methods — is utterly cruel,” he said. “We should not just be horrified — we should be outraged.”

This story has been edited to correct an earlier reference to the year of the last firing squad execution.

Contributing: Terry Benjamin II, the Greenville News, usa today.