Condemned South Carolina inmate Brad Sigmon has chosen to die next month by a firing squad, a method of execution that has not been used in the U.S. in 15 years.
Sigmon is slated to be executed on March 7th. On Friday, he became the first South Carolina inmate to choose the state’s new firing squad over lethal injection or the electric chair.
Only three inmates in the U.S. have been executed by firing squad since 1976. All were in Utah, with the last one taking place in 2010.
Sigmon, 67, will be strapped to a chair and have a hood placed over his head and a target placed over his heart in the death chamber. Three volunteers will fire at him through a small opening about 15 feet away.
Lawyers for Sigmon asked to delay his execution date earlier this month because they wanted to learn if the prisoner in South Carolina’s previous execution, Marion Bowman, was given two doses of pentobarbital at his execution on Jan. 31 and look over his autopsy report.
The justices rejected his delay and court records Friday have not indicated if Sigmon’s lawyers have received Bowman’s autopsy report yet.
Sigmon was convicted in the 2001 baseball bat killings of his ex-girlfriend’s parents at their home in Greenville County. They were in separate rooms, and Sigmon went back and forth as he beat them to death, investigators said.
Sigmon then kidnapped his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint, but she escaped from his car. He shot at her as she ran but missed, according to prosecutors.