The double murderer set to die by firing squad in South Carolina Friday had his last-minute appeal to save his life turned down — paving the way for him to become the first in the US to die by the unusual method in 15 years.
The attorney for Brad Sigmon — who is set to die at 6 p.m. — argued during a final appeal to the South Carolina Supreme Court that his client was never given information about the lethal injection method when he was deciding how to end his life.
“He wanted to know had the drugs expired, had they been diluted, had they spoiled? And none of those facts were disclosed despite his repeated requests,” lawyer Gerald “Bo” King told WYFF4.
Sigmon, 67 — who pleaded guilty to murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat in 2001 — chose death by firing squad over the electric chair or lethal injection.
He expressed concern that the electric chair would “burn and cook him alive,” his other attorney said.
King also argued his client should have never received the death penalty because he was struggling with mental illness at the time of the slayings, and because Sigmon had befriended men on death row — which is evidence of his rehabilitation, he claimed.
But South Carolina’s Supreme Court rejected his appeal — paving the way for his execution unless Gov. Henry McMaster commutes his death sentence.
McMaster will make his decision moments before the execution begins, but no South Carolina governor has granted clemency in the 49 years since the death penalty restarted.
King said Friday that Sigmon had chosen three buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken as his last meal so that he could share it with his pals on death row, the Daily Mail reported.
“Brad is someone who served as an informal chaplain to the guys on death row. He’s someone who models the kind of service and ministry that’s the central pillar of his faith,” King said about the killer.
Sigmon will be strapped into a chair in the prison’s death chamber, have a hood put over his head and a target placed over his heart, just before three volunteers open fire at him from about 15 feet away.
He chose the firing squad believing that he’d die a torturous death from lethal injection.
Autopsies on two inmates who were killed with massive doses of pentobarbital showed a considerable amount of fluid in their lungs, and a defense expert said they may have struggled to breathe in their last moments.
“There is no justice here. Everything about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity — from the choice to the method itself — is abjectly cruel. We should not just be horrified — we should be furious,” King said in a statement.
Only three inmates have died by firing squad in the US — all in Utah — since 1976. The last one was in 2010.
Sigmon received two death sentences in 2001 for killing David Larke, 62, and Gladys Larke, 59.
He waited for his girlfriend, Rebecca Barbare, at her family home, then forced her into his car at gunpoint.
Barbare was able to escape from the vehicle as Sigmon fired shots at her.
Sigmon was on the run for 11 days before police caught up with him in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
“If I couldn’t have her, I wasn’t going to let anybody else have her,” Sigmon told investigators after his arrest, referring to his girlfriend.
With Post wires
