The State of South Carolina killed Brad Sigmon earlier this month. The 67-year-old Sigmon was seated in a chair with a hood over his head and a target pinned over his heart as a firing squad of three people aimed at him and fired their rifles.
His death “was horrifying and violent,” Gerald “Bo” King, one of Sigmon’s attorneys, told CNN after witnessing the execution.
Sigmon’s firing squad execution is the fourth such execution in the U.S. since 1977- the three prior were all Utah executions- and the first since 2010, when Utah killed Ronnie Lee Gardner, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. He was the oldest person ever to be executed in South Carolina.
“By executing Brad Sigmon, South Carolina has also executed the possibility of redemption. Our state is declaring that no matter what you do to make up for your wrongdoing, we reserve the right to kill you. But the question is not whether Brad deserved to die: the question is whether we deserved to kill,” Sigmon’s spiritual advisor, South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Executive Director Rev. Hillary Taylor, stated.
Sigmon was sentenced to death in 2002 after being convicted of killing 62-year-old David and 59-year-old Gladys Larke, the parents of his former girlfriend, Rebecca Barbare, a week after Barbare ended their relationship.
“As Brad’s spiritual advisor, I can personally attest to the fact that he is a different man today than the person he was more than 20 years ago, when he harmed the Larke family,” Taylor said. “I can also imagine the anguish-filled journey on which the Larkes have been these last 4- ½ years. Brad wanted nothing more than to repair the harm he caused them. But our prison system does not allow this. Nor does our prison system recognize that those who cause great violence are often the victims of harm and neglect themselves.”