COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — I’ve now watched through glass and bars as 11 men were put to death at a South Carolina prison. None of the previous 10 prepared me for watching the firing squad death of Brad Sigmon on Friday night.
I might now be unique among U.S. reporters: I’ve witnessed three different methods — nine lethal injections and an electric chair execution. I can still hear the thunk of the breaker falling 21 years later.
As a journalist you want to ready yourself for an assignment. You research a case. You read about the subject.
In the two weeks since I knew how Sigmon was going to die, I read up on firing squads and the damage that can be done by the bullets. I looked at the autopsy photos of the last man shot to death by the state, in Utah in 2010.
I also pored over the transcript of his trial, including how prosecutors said it took less than two minutes for Sigmon to strike his ex-girlfriend’s parents nine times each in the head with a baseball bat, going back and forth between them in different rooms of their Greenville County home in 2001 until they were dead.
But you don’t know everything when some of execution protocols are kept secret, and it’s impossible to know what to expect when you’ve never seen someone shot at close range right in front of you.
The firing squad is certainly faster — and more violent — than lethal injection. It’s a lot more tense, too. My heart started pounding a little after Sigmon’s lawyer read his final statement. The hood was put over Sigmon’s head, and an employee opened the black pull shade that shielded where the three prison system volunteer shooters were.
About two minutes later, they fired. There was no warning or countdown. The abrupt crack of the rifles startled me. And the white target with the red bullseye that had been on his chest, standing out against his black prison jumpsuit, disappeared instantly as Sigmon’s whole body flinched.
It reminded me of what happened to the prisoner 21 years ago when electricity jolted his body.
I tried to keep track, all at once, of the digital clock on the wall to my right, Sigmon to my left, the small, rectangular window with the shooters and the witnesses in front of me.
A jagged red spot about the size of a small fist appeared where Sigmon was shot. His chest moved two or three times. Outside of the rifle crack, there was no sound.
A doctor came out in less than a minute, and his examination took about a minute more. Sigmon was declared dead at 6:08 p.m.
Then we left through the same door we came in.
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