Lawyers for Brad Sigmon said he chose a death by firing squad because he thought lethal injection would be tortuous
South Carolina’s supreme court has rejected what is likely the final appeal of convicted murderer Brad Sigmon, clearing the way for his execution by firing squad on Friday.
Sigmon’s lawyers wanted to delay his death so they could get a fuller hearing in court to learn more information about the drug South Carolina uses in lethal injections. Sigmon said that lack of information forced him to choose to be shot to death. The state also has an electric chair, but Sigmon said he didn’t want to suffer being cooked alive by electricity.
Sigmon’s attorneys also argued that his lawyers in the original 2002 trial did a poor job of trying to save his life after he pleaded guilty by not submitting enough evidence of his mental problems.
Sigmon, 67, beat his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death with a baseball bat in their Greenville county home. His plan was to kidnap his ex-girlfriend, spend a romantic weekend together and then kill her and himself. She escaped from his car as he drove away.
“If I couldn’t have her, I wasn’t going to let anybody else have her. And I knew it got to the point where I couldn’t have her,” Sigmon said in a confession typed out by a detective after his arrest.
