“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” Brad Sigmon testified at his trial in July 2002. “I am guilty.”
The South Carolina killer was placed on death row after pleading guilty to the double murder of his ex-girlfriend’s parents, striking them each nine times in the head with a baseball bat.
More than two decades later, the 67-year-old is set to become the first inmate to die by firing squad in the U.S. since the murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010 and the oldest person ever to be executed in South Carolina.
On March 7, Sigmon is set to be strapped to a chair, a hood placed over his head with a target marking his heart in the death chamber at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, where he is being held.
Standing about 15 feet away, three volunteers are then expected to open fire at him through a small opening.
In June 2021 Sigmon avoided “Old Sparky,” the 113-year-old electric chair housed at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, as the law gave death row inmates the statutory right to choose their method of execution, including firing squad – which was not yet available.
He was again given reprieve that year and for a third time in May 2022 due to the state not having a supply of drugs to administer a lethal injection.
Sigmon chose his manner of execution, the other two choices being lethal injection and electrocution.
The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled last July to allow executions to resume after a 13-year hiatus, with murderer Freddie Eugene Owens put to death by lethal injection two months later in September 2024. The high court also ruled that death by firing squad was a legal form of punishment, despite criticism that it is an inhumane form of justice.
Sigmon didn’t pick the electric chair over fears it would “burn and cook him alive,” his attorney Gerald King wrote in a statement.
He decided against being administered a fatal dose of pentobarbital after three previous recipients of the lethal injection in the state were not declared dead for at least 20 minutes despite it set to work in a fraction of the time, his lawyers added.
Opponents of the death penalty called on Governor Henry McMaster to grant Sigmon clemency soon after his death warrant was issued on February 7. However, no South Carolina governor has previously commuted the sentence of a death row inmate.
Sigmon, whose online prison records show no violent offenses, is “deeply remorseful,” King said.
On Wednesday, his attorneys filed a motion with the state’s Supreme Court requesting a stay of his execution. They said he is being forced to choose a violent death by firing squad because, without more information, he believes the lethal injection would lead to a tortuous death.
The crime
Sigmon and his partner, Rebecca Barbare, had been in a relationship for about three years before it ended at the beginning of 2001. The pair had been living together in a trailer park near his girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke, in Greenville.
After a night of smoking crack cocaine and drinking, Sigmon told a friend that he would “get Becky for leaving him the way she did” and “tie her parents up,” according to court documents.
When Barbare took her children to school, Sigmon arrived at the Larkes’ house at about 8 a.m. armed with a baseball bat, which he used to bludgeon the couple to death.
The husband’s “skull was basically almost broken in two,” the court heard during the trial.
Sigmon stole David Larke's gun and waited for his ex-girlfriend to arrive home.
Upon her arrival, Barbare was ushered into a car at gunpoint. The woman managed to jump out of the vehicle and escape the scene, evading shots fired in her direction, per the documents. Sigmon then managed to flee the state.
Sigmon later testified that he told officers he had planned to both kill Barbare and himself.
A manhunt was launched and he was eventually captured at a campground in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, after being on the run for 11 days. He was then extradited to South Carolina.
The trial
After his arrest, Sigmon was indicted by a South Carolina grand jury for two counts of murder and a first-degree burglary charge, among other offenses.
He eventually stood trial in July 2002 where prosecutors sought the death penalty due to the Larkes’ “most horrific death.”
They presented evidence that the victims likely lived for up to five minutes after the assault, hemorrhaging and coughing up blood.
Sigmon’s defense team presented testimony regarding his mental state and extensive history of drug use stemming from his “recurrent major depressive disorder” or his “chemical dependency disorders,” according to court documents.
The jury unanimously found him guilty on both murder charges and he was issued two death sentences along with 30 years in prison for the burglary charge.
Sigmon was placed on death row on July 20, 2002.
