Brad Sigmon, Killer Who Converted To Christianity On Death Row, First-Ever Inmate Executed By Firing Squad In South Carolina

By Skylar Laird, SC Each day Gazette, March 7, 2025

COLUMBIA — Brad Sigmon on Friday grew to turn out to be the first inmate performed by firing squad in South Carolina.

He used to be pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m.

“South Carolina has ended the lifetime of a man who has devoted himself to his faith, and to ministry and repair to all over him,” learn an announcement issued by Gerald “Bo” King of the federal public defender’s place of job on behalf of Sigmon’s right crew.

“Brad admitted his guilt at trial and shared his deep concern for his crimes with his jury and, within the years since, with every person who knew him,” it learn.

Sigmon used to be convicted in 2002 of killing David and Gladys Larke of their Greenville house, then kidnapping their daughter — his ex-lady friend, Rebecca Barbare — who managed to receive away.

South Carolina justices grew to turn out to be down his ideal allure in teach court docket Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court docket issued a denial to intervene now no longer up to two hours before his scheduled execution. Gov. Henry McMaster then declined to grant clemency.

At 67, Sigmon used to be the oldest particular person ever performed in South Carolina. He used to be moreover the first particular person build to loss of life by firing squad within the US since 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner chose the model in Utah.

Three varied inmates were build to loss of life in South Carolina since executions resumed in September following an accidental 13-yr hiatus. All three chose to die by lethal injection.

The execution

The penal complex company’s protocol for the firing squad called for Sigmon to be strapped to a chair within the teach’s loss of life chamber, going through a rectangular gap within the wall 15 toes away.

His head, chest, palms and ankles were already strapped when the curtain atmosphere aside witnesses from the loss of life chamber opened at 6:01 p.m., media witnesses said after the execution.

A gaiter mask obscured his mouth. A white purpose with a purple bullseye printed on it covered his heart.

Sigmon looked toward his attorney and perceived to mouth just a few words that witnesses couldn’t make out. He and his non secular advisor, who sat within the entrance row, nodded toward every varied, witnesses reported.

In his final observation (printed in full below), Sigmon reaffirmed the Christian faith to which he dedicated himself in penal complex and called for an cease to the loss of life penalty.

“An sight for an sight used to be feeble as justification to the jury for within the hunt for the loss of life penalty,” Sigmon wrote within the observation learn by King. “Within the interim, I used to be too ignorant to know the draw scandalous that used to be. Why? Because we now now no longer are residing below the Conventional Testament law but now are residing below the Fresh Testament.”

Along side the non secular advisor and attorney, three unidentified people of the Larke family and representatives from the solicitor’s place of job and Greenville County Sheriff’s Place of work watched.

A detention center worker placed a shadowy hood over Sigmon’s head that came down to his shoulders, then opened a shadowy colour that had covered a gap within the brick wall.

Sigmon perceived to rob several deep breaths.

In accordance with protocol, the firing squad consisted of three volunteer corrections officers, all the mutter of are residing ammunition, aiming for the aim over Sigmon’s heart.

At 6:05 p.m., the gunmen shot during the outlet. Sigmon’s arm tensed. His chest moved two or three cases. The bullets gave the affect to enter his chest right over his heart, witnesses said.

A doctor entered the room and examined Sigmon for approximately 90 seconds before declaring his time of loss of life. No blood will be seen beyond a runt patch over his heart the place the bullets hit, witnesses said.

The execution went quicker than previous ones by lethal injection, in accordance to a survey who has seen all four since September.

In accordance with what officials previously suggested the teach Supreme Court docket, the gunmen feeble .308 Winchester bullets, which boost and fragment on impact, inflicting a extra “instantaneous” loss of life.

Sigmon’s final meal, which he had Wednesday, used to be four pieces of fried rooster, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits, cheesecake and sweet tea, said penal complex spokeswoman Chrysti Shain.

In accordance with his right crew’s observation, Sigmon requested for three buckets of Long-established Recipe KFC “so he might maybe perchance maybe feed the males locked up with him. That inquire of used to be denied.”

Protocol requires that each one food must come from the penal complex’s kitchen.

The draw in which it grew to turn out to be an option

Legislators added the firing squad as an option in 2021, amid struggles to receive the tablets wished for lethal injection. The the same law modified the default formulation of execution from lethal injection again to electrocution.

Some, including legislators and attorneys for the teach, hold argued firing squad is a quicker and no more painful loss of life than lethal injection and electrocution. The teach Supreme Court docket dominated in July that firing squad and electrocution were constitutional solutions.

Firing squad “comes as shut to a ‘painless loss of life’ — now no longer guaranteed by the constitution — as any formulation of execution is seemingly to come,” Justice John Few wrote within the majority belief.

A U.S. Supreme Court docket justice gave the affect to agree in a 2017 belief. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who’s regarded as a liberal justice, believed the nation’s excessive court docket can also silent cease the lethal injection execution of an Alabama inmate and allow him to die by his most neatly-most original formulation, the firing squad, despite teach law now no longer allowing it.

“As well to to being shut to prompt, loss of life by shooting might maybe perchance even be comparatively painless,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. “And traditionally, the firing squad has yielded considerably fewer botched executions.”

Sigmon used to be the fourth particular person performed by firing squad since the U.S. Supreme Court docket allowed executions to resume nationally in 1976. While five states — Idaho, Utah, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Mississippi — allow the model, only Utah has feeble it in that timeframe, in accordance to the Loss of life Penalty Records Center.

Sigmon’s crime

The evening of April 26, 2001, whereas ingesting and smoking crack cocaine with a buddy, Sigmon said he planned to head to the Larkes’ home the next morning to kidnap Barbare and recede with her after tying up her parents so they couldn’t call the police, the buddy later testified.

Barbare had now no longer too prolonged ago broken up with Sigmon, who persisted to are residing within the trailer they’d shared on the Larkes’ property. Obsessed with the foundation of her dating yet another man, he had been stalking her, in accordance to court docket documents.

“Turned into I enraged by her? Optimistic,” Sigmon later testified. “Did I in actuality treasure her? I loved her extra than anything in this world. And I didn’t desire to lose her.”

Sigmon went to the Larkes’ home the next morning and attacked 62-yr-extinct David and 59-yr-extinct Gladys with a baseball bat. He went between the place they lay within the kitchen and the lounge, hitting them within the head usually except both were dead. Every used to be struck 9 cases, in accordance to court docket facts.

When Barbare returned house, Sigmon forced her again into her vehicle at gunpoint — the mutter of her father’s gun. She opened the door because the vehicle used to be shifting, jumped out and ran. Sigmon shot at her, hitting her once within the foot. After Barbare escaped, Sigmon fled, prompting a manhunt.

Authorities discovered Sigmon at a campground in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, after the mutter of a wire tap on his mother’s phone, which he called whereas on the lam. He later suggested police he had planned to kill himself and Barbare, officers later testified.

“I hate what I did,” Sigmon testified. “My family raised me to be better than that. They raised me to place right. And it ain’t the tablets. It ain’t the alcohol. It ain’t (Barbare). It used to be me.”

Sigmon never denied what he did, even telling the jury within the course of his trial, “I’m guilty.” His attorneys gave no evidence to the contrary, but Sigmon determined now no longer to enter a guilty plea because he wanted a jury to evaluate his fate, in accordance to court docket facts.

“Invent I must die?” Sigmon testified within the course of his trial. “I maybe place. I maybe place.”

“I don’t desire to die,” he persisted. “It would kill my mom, my brothers and my sisters.”

Closing appeals

Sigmon’s attorneys claimed in final-ditch appeals that a jury never heard evidence about his bipolar dysfunction, mind anguish and childhood trauma.

Sigmon’s then-undiagnosed psychological sickness and trauma triggered him to hold “a manic and irrational episode an similar to a psychotic spoil,” which led to him killing the Larkes, his attorneys claimed in court docket filings final month.

But Sigmon’s attorneys did call witnesses to testify about Sigmon’s psychological sickness, mind anguish and trauma within the course of his sentencing, the court docket wrote Tuesday in denying their inquire of. Even though they hadn’t, that seemingly wouldn’t were sufficient to convince jurors to swap their minds, justices wrote.

Sigmon moreover requested the court docket to smash his execution prolonged sufficient to hear arguments as as to whether or now no longer the lethal injection the teach feeble in its past three executions since September is as safe as officials stutter.

Sigmon didn’t hold sufficient time or facts to evaluate whether or now no longer lethal injection would be preferable to the assorted accessible solutions, his attorneys argued. If he knew extra concerning the teach’s job, he can also need chosen differently, they wrote in petitions to teach and federal courts.

Below a 2023 law supposed to make it that that you might maybe well maybe imagine for the teach to secure tablets feeble in lethal injections, practically the total lot concerning the tablets and the protocol is saved secret. Officers hold maintained the teach has adopted that protocol in all three executions performed since September.

Autopsies of Richard Moore and Marion Bowman showed the drug, administered in two doses every time, made the males’s lungs swell with blood and fluid and “causes the sensation of drowning,” the attorneys wrote of their petition Wednesday to the U.S. Supreme Court docket.

Freddie Moore, before he used to be build to loss of life by lethal injection in September, opted out of an autopsy for non secular reasons.

That swelling, is called pulmonary edema, is basic in deaths triggered by lethal injection, teach Attorney General Alan Wilson wrote in response. Docs hold equipped evidence in some cases that the fluid speeding to inmates’ lungs doesn’t occur except after the inmate is already dead, his response persisted.

Besides, Sigmon didn’t determine that formulation, so the draw in which it affected varied inmates shouldn’t topic to him, Wilson wrote.

David and Gladys Larke

David and Gladys Larke’s young of us were silent counting on them after they died, their young of us testified within the course of Sigmon’s 2002 trial.

David used to be helping his son, Darrell Larke, obtain a home to are residing in. Gladys used to be presupposed to head to an ultrasound appointment with her pregnant daughter, Renee Smith, two weeks after her loss of life.

Gladys “used to be counting the days down to search out out if it used to be going to be a boy or lady,” Smith said on the time.

The 2 were “the center of the total lot that we did,” Darrell Larke testified.

“Every morning when I receive up, I hold about his marks at my home, shiny that he will never hold about that home that he constructed with me,” Darrell Larke said about his father.

The Larkes had three daughters and two sons. They were both retired, Gladys from clothes manufacturing facility Stone Manufacturing and David from Renfrew-Kerr Ending Firm, in accordance to their obituaries.

Smith lived no longer some distance away to her parents and went over every evening for dinner. Her dad would consistently take a seat in his chair within the lounge or on the entrance porch whereas her mother cooked, she said.

The family would get for every vacation. But after David and Gladys died, they stopped, Smith said.

“It shining appears treasure I’m residing somebody else’s existence, because we feeble to be a family and it’s shining treasure that section of it is long past,” Smith said.

In a most up-to-date interview with USA Recently, her first since the crime, Barbare said she didn’t imagine within the loss of life penalty but believed Sigmon wished to answer to for what he had performed.

“The Bible tells you, I comprehend it says ‘an sight for an sight’ and ‘a enamel for a enamel’ but when you learn on down in there it says, ‘Revenge is now no longer mine, says the Lord, revenge is God’s,” Barbare, whose final name is now Armstrong, suggested USA Recently. “I don’t hold somebody being build to loss of life is gonna bring me closure … It bothers me and offers me alarm about him being build to loss of life, and in particular him picking the firing squad.”

Brad Sigmon

On loss of life row, Sigmon has turn out to be is called an “casual chaplain” who mentors varied inmates, said Rev. Hillary Taylor, director of South Carolinians for That that you might maybe well maybe hold of choices to the Loss of life Penalty. He has been known to mutter his commissary funds to assist varied inmates who hold now no longer up to him, said Taylor, who has been Sigmon’s non secular advisor for the past four years.

Sigmon has prolonged been non secular. While he hid out in Tennessee, he brought with him a Bible that he learn from, he testified within the course of his trial. He recommitted himself to his faith after his arrest, he suggested the court docket.

“That’s all I purchased left,” Sigmon testified about his faith. “I purchased nothing else. That’s all I hold.”

Once, after finishing a direction with a church that does products and services for inmates, he requested that the Bible he used to be supposed to receive rush to his 10-yr-extinct grandson as a replacement, in accordance to a letter equipped by his attorneys.

“What e book is extra crucial then (sic) God’s discover,” Sigmon wrote. “I so desire him to learn about Jesus whereas he’s silent young.”

Sigmon has multiple penpals, some of whom he has been exchanging letters with for over a decade, Taylor said. He has requested some of these penpals to ship him books of jokes that he can mutter to make varied inmates chortle, she said.

Sigmon used to be shut with his son, Robbie Sigmon, the son testified within the course of Sigmon’s trial. One yr for Robbie’s birthday, Sigmon skipped paying his insurance invoice so he might maybe perchance maybe buy a mud bike, his son testified.

“We feeble to play your total time,” Robbie Sigmon said. “He’d come house from work, and he’d play outdoor with us. Me and my daddy had relationship.”

Because the oldest of 5 siblings, Sigmon learned to admire his family from a young age, Taylor said. He started working in a manufacturing facility as a teen to assist pay for food. When a youthful brother used to be injured and struggled to plod, 13-yr-extinct Sigmon would elevate him on his again, Taylor said.

“He used to be consistently the peacemaker,” Sigmon’s father, Ronnie Sigmon, testified within the course of his trial. “That’s what’s so beautiful about all this. He’s the actual particular person that stopped the fights.”

The observation issued by Sigmon’s attorneys after he used to be performed common that he used to be never violent in his 23 years on loss of life row.

“Brad devoted himself every single day to prayer and repentance,” it learn. ” In these final days of his 23 years on loss of life row, Brad spent hours kneeling on the bottom of his cell so he might maybe perchance maybe write letters to the family and friends for whom he has been a wellspring of affection and purple meat up.”

Editor’s whisper: This article used to be republished from South Carolina Each day Gazette below a Creative Commons license.