A South Carolina man who beat his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death in a fit of rage is set to become the first inmate to be executed by firing squad in the U.S. since 2010 and the first ever in the state’s modern history on Friday.
Brad Keith Sigmon is expected to be strapped to a specially made chair and have a hood over his head while three volunteer corrections staffers aim loaded rifles at his heart and each fire off a live round, according to the state’s execution protocols.
Sigmon, 67, was convicted of the 2001 murders of Gladys and David Larke, who were beaten to death with a baseball bat in their small-town home in northwestern South Carolina. Sigmon, who chose the firing squad over lethal injection or the electric chair, has always admitted to killing the Larkes.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am guilty,” Sigmon told jurors at his trial, according to archived coverage in the Greenville News, part of the USA TODAY Network. “I have no excuse for what I did. It’s my fault and I’m not trying to blame nobody else for it, and I’m sorry.”
Sigmon’s ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Armstrong, told USA TODAY − in her first interview in the 24 years since her parents’ murder − that Sigmon’s actions ripped her family apart and that “he should answer for what he’s done,” though she doesn’t believe in the death penalty.
Here’s what you need to know about Sigmon’s execution, how the firing squad will work and what else his victims’ family has to say.
When and where will Brad Keith Sigmon be executed?
Sigmon is set to be executed just after 6 p.m. ET at the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, South Carolina.
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How will Brad Keith Sigmon be executed?
Sigmon will sit restrained in a metal chair, a hood over his head, in the corner of a room shared by the state’s electric chair, “which can’t be moved,” according to the South Carolina Department of Corrections’ execution protocols provided to USA TODAY.
The firing squad team − three voluntary corrections staff − will stand behind a wall with loaded rifles 15 feet from Sigmon. The wall will have an opening for the weapons.
“A small aim point will be placed over his heart by a member of the execution team,” the department said. “After the warden reads the execution order, the team will fire … After the inmate is declared dead, the curtain will be drawn and witnesses escorted out.”
Witnesses to the execution, which typically involve family members of both the inmate and victim, members of the news media, attorneys and prison staff, “will see the right-side profile of the inmate.”
The department said that bullet-resistant glass has been installed between the death chamber and the witness room.
What was Brad Keith Sigmon convicted of?
On April 27, 2001, Sigmon showed up at David and Gladys Larke’s house with a plan that he hatched while doing crack cocaine the night before: He was going to tie them up and kidnap his ex, he told police.
Instead, he beat the couple to death with a baseball bat, hitting each of them nine times, according to police and a medical examiner’s report. Sigmon kidnapped Armstrong in his car but she jumped out of the moving vehicle and was able to escape, though Sigmon shot her once in the foot before his gun ran out of bullets, according to court records.
Sigmon told jurors at his 2002 trial that he had no excuse for what he did, saying that when Armstrong fell out of love with him, it “set me off,” according to the Greenville News.
“I was obsessed with her,” he told jurors. “Did I love her? More than anything else in the world.”
He continued to tell jurors that the death penalty was probably appropriate in his case, saying: “I hate what I did.”
“Do I deserve to die? I probably do,” he said. “I don’t want to die … I just want to live for my family’s sake.”
The Larkes’ family says they were their ‘glue’
Jurors in Sigmon’s murder trial also heard from family members of David and Gladys Larke, who were 62 and 59, respectively, when they were killed. Their adult children wept on the witness stand and spoke of their devastation.
“I am who I am because of him (my dad) and my mom,” Darrell Larke said, according to the Greenville News. “He taught me how to fish, how to hunt, how to enjoy life, how to be responsible.”
Armstrong told USA TODAY this week that her parents were simple country folk who had five children and were always looking out for everyone. Her mom loved cooking up a feast for the whole family and her dad “had a good heart” who was quick to forgive and ask forgiveness.
“They were the glue of the family,” Armstrong said, adding that they’ve missed the births of some of their eight grandchildren and five great-grand children since they were murdered. “He took that away.”
She said she does not plan on attending the execution, but her son, Ricky Sims, told the Greenville News that he will be there, wearing the pair of boots that were the last gift his grandparents ever gave him.
“He’s going to pay for what he’s done,” Sims said. “He took away two people who would have done anything for their family. They were the rock of our family … They didn’t deserve it.”
Who were Gladys and David Larke? More about the couple killed by Brad Keith Sigmon
Who is Brad Keith Sigmon?
Before the murders, Sigmon was as “a hard worker and a loving brother who worked factory shifts as a teenager to make sure his brothers and sisters could eat,” his attorney, Gerald “Bo” King, said in a statement.
He said that Sigmon became a “tortured” man because of an undiagnosed mental illness that caused “irrational and impulsive episodes,” something he tried to treat with street drugs.
“And that Brad, who was already struggling with organic brain damage and grief from his violent childhood, succumbed to a psychotic break,” King said. “The jury that sentenced him had no idea of how severely compromised his mental health was, or that he was probably incompetent even to stand trial.”
Armstrong said that she and Sigmon were best friends for five years before their romance began and lasted another five years. Armstrong, who had three children when she met Sigmon, said that while he had anger issues and slapped her once, she never would have imagined him capable of the evil he committed.
Since he’s been in prison, King said Sigmon has been “transformed” to a repentant, God-loving man and a “peaceful, trusted presence on Death Row.”
“He serves as an informal chaplain to his fellow prisoners,” King said. “He is a source of strength to his siblings and children. He is also in declining health and poses a danger to no one.”
What is the modern history of the firing squad in the U.S.?
Five states − South Carolina Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho − have legalized firing squads as an execution method, most recently Idaho in 2023.
The last inmate in the U.S. to be killed by firing squad was in 2010, when Utah executed Ronnie Lee Gardner for killing a man during a robbery. Both other firing squad executions were in Utah, Gary Mark Gilmore in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996.
Among the witnesses to Gardner’s execution was an Associated Press reporter who said that five volunteer prison staff members fired at him from about 25 feet away with .30-caliber rifles, aiming at a target pinned over his chest as he sat in a chair. One of the rifles had a blank so none of the volunteers knew whether they fired a fatal bullet, AP reported.
King, Sigmon’s attorney, said in a statement that “there is no justice” with Friday’s execution.
“Everything about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity − from the choice to the method itself − is abjectly cruel,” he said. “We should not just be horrified – we should be furious.”
This story has been edited to correct the first reference of the year of the last firing squad execution.
Contributing: Terry Benjamin II, the Greenville News
