Sixty-seven-year-old Brad Keith Sigmon, an inmate at the South Carolina Department of Corrections, was executed by firing squad on Friday, marking the first such execution in the US since 2010.
This method of execution has been used only four times in the US since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Sigmon, convicted of double homicide, chose the firing squad over two other state-approved methods: lethal injection and the electric chair.
He was declared deceased at 6:08 p.m. ET by a physician.
Sigmon was found guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 2001 and kidnapping his ex-girlfriend, who managed to escape.
In a statement, Sigmon appealed for an end to the death penalty, citing biblical verses on forgiveness and stating, “Nowhere does God in the New Testament give man the authority to kill another man.”
Sigmon’s attorneys had filed a petition seeking executive clemency and commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment without parole, citing an undiagnosed, inherited mental illness at the time of the crimes.
However, the Supreme Court and South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster declined to approve leniency, leading to the execution.