COLUMBIA, S.C. — The state of South Carolina carried out the execution of 67-year-old Brad Keith Sigmon by firing squad on Friday, marking the first such execution in the United States since 2010 and only the fourth since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Sigmon, convicted of a brutal double homicide in 2001, was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m. ET, officials confirmed at a news conference. He had been found guilty of murdering his former girlfriend’s parents and kidnapping her, though she later managed to escape.
Faced with three state-approved execution methods—lethal injection, the electric chair, or firing squad—Sigmon opted for the latter.
In a final statement, he urged fellow Christians to advocate for an end to the death penalty, citing biblical principles of forgiveness. “Nowhere does God in the New Testament give man the authority to kill another man,” he said.
Sigmon’s attorneys made a last-minute appeal for clemency, arguing that he suffered from an undiagnosed inherited mental illness at the time of the crime. However, both the U.S. Supreme Court and South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster declined to intervene, allowing the execution to proceed.
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