Brad Sigmon, the first U.S. inmate to be put to death by firing squad in 15 years, has been executed for the double murder of his ex-girlfriend’s parents.
The 67-year-old inmate was escorted into South Carolina’s Broad River Correctional Institution execution chamber in Columbia shortly before 6 p.m., the time of his scheduled execution. He was wearing a black jumpsuit and black plastic Croc-like shoes.
Three state Department of Corrections employees, who volunteered to execute him, stood behind a wall with a rectangular opening 15 feet away. Once Sigmon was strapped into a chair with his ankles shackled and mouth covered, executioners put a hood over his face.
A bullseye marked the location of his heart.
His last statement was read to witnesses, who included three members of the victims’ family.
“I want my closing statement to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty,” he wrote. “ An eye for an eye was used as justification to the jury for seeking the death penalty. At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that was.”
Sigmon’s statement continued with Bible verses and noted: “Nowhere does God in the New Testament give man authority to kill another man.”
The warden then read the execution warrant.
Sigmon then took several deep breaths and the riflemen fired rounds of .308 Winchester TAP URBAN bullets at 6:05 p.m. A doctor confirmed Sigmon’s death at 6:08 p.m. Staff lowered the curtains to conceal his body.
Media witnesses observed a small red stain on Sigmon’s chest, with a small piece of tissue exiting the wound, following the execution. Sigmon’s arm tensed up after the shots were fired, one reporter said.
It was South Carolina’s first firing squad execution since the state passed a law allowing the method in 2021. Ronnie Gardner was the last person to be put to death in the U.S. by firing squad in June 2010 in Utah.
Sigmon chose to die by firing squad in February, weeks after the Corrections Department received his execution order.
He had to choose from the state’s three available methods: lethal injection, electrocution or firing squad.
The state spent about $53,600 on supplies and materials to make renovations to its execution chamber that would accommodate firing squads. The construction and design work was done in-house, officials said in a news release.
The firing squad team was formed since the new law’s creation, and its members practice once a month.
Sigmon’s spiritual advisor, the Reverend Hillary Taylor of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, spoke to The Independent after Sigmon’s death. She described his chosen method as the most “honest” one available to him.
“There is no quick and easy way to kill somebody unless it is gruesome and violent, which is what the firing squad is,” she said in a phone call, explaining Sigmon didn’t want to be a “guinea pig” for the state’s lethal injection drugs.
“Brad was faced with an impossible decision,” Taylor continued. “He was told: ‘You either will be cooked to death by the electric chair or you will be pumped with poisons.’”
The reverend spent most of the day at the correctional facility, where she met with Sigmon and held vigil along with 35 to 45 fellow demonstrators protesting the death penalty.
Taylor had known Sigmon since 2020. While on death row, he tithed his commissary funds, helped keep peace among the inmates and even served as an “informal chaplin,” she said.
“He's somebody who always expressed remorse and guilt for the harm that he caused,” she said.
Sigmon ended up on death row in 2002 for murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents, 59-year-old Gladys and David Larke, 62, in Greenville County. He confessed to the killings and told authorities he struck them in the head with a baseball bat nine times each.
Sigmon had been dating Rebecca Barbare for about three years when their relationship ended in 2001. One day, after smoking crack and drinking, he told a friend he wanted to get revenge on the woman for “leaving him the way she did” and “tie her parents up,” according to court records.
While Barbare took her children to school, he entered her parents’ home and beat them to death. Barbare’s father’s skull “was almost broken in two,” according to court transcripts.
Then Sigmon waited for Barbare to return to the home. When she did, he used her father’s gun to shove her into his car at gunpoint.
She managed to escape the vehicle, dodging shots fired in her direction.
Sigmon fled the state and was arrested at a campground in Gatlinburg, Tennessee following an 11-day manhunt. Police there extradited him to South Carolina, where a grand jury indicted him on two counts of murder and a first-degree burglary charge.
He told officers he had planned to kill both Barbare and himself.
In her first interview since the incident, Barbare, 59, who now goes by the name Rebecca Armstrong, told the Des Moines Register this week her parents always showed their children “what unconditional love was all about.”
Quoting parts of the same scripture in Sigmon’s statement, Armstrong said: “I don't think somebody being put to death is gonna bring me closure ... It bothers me and gives me anxiety about him being put to death, and especially him picking the firing squad.”
Her son, Ricky Sims, attended the execution wearing a pair of boots his grandfather had given him.
The state Supreme Court in July issued a ruling allowing executions to resume following a 13-year moratorium. The court also deemed firing squad executions a legal form of punishment, despite criticism that it’s an inhumane form of justice.
Authorities have since carried out three lethal injection executions.
Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor Governor Henry McMaster granted Sigmon a reprieve ahead of his death, despite efforts by his attorney. The court did not issue a statement on the matter.
Sigmon’s last meal, which was given to him Wednesday evening as part of standard protocol, consisted of four pieces of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, cheesecake and sweet tea.
Sigmon shared the dishes with other men on death row.
He was served a regular menu after that until his execution.
