In a dramatic move, a 44-year-old South Carolina man, convicted of three separate murders, was executed by firing squad, making him the third person in the state this year to face that method of capital punishment.
The man, who pleaded guilty to killing three individuals in October 2004, was carried into the death chamber and selected the firing squad option over the electric chair and lethal injection. Witnesses said he sat strapped to a chair, with a hood placed over his head and a target on his chest. Within minutes of the shots being fired, medical staff declared him dead.
Authorities confirmed that his victims included two men he picked up while giving rides and another who had visited his home, each fatally shot during separate incidents in rural Sumter County. Investigators noted that in one case the killer wrote a message in the victim’s blood on a wall, taunting law enforcement.
The completion of this execution underscores the ongoing revival in South Carolina of the use of firing squads — a method that had not been carried out nationally for years. Officials say the state offers condemned inmates a choice of execution method; if none is chosen, electrocution is the default.
With this latest death penalty case resolved, the focus now turns to how often such methods will be used and how the state’s justice system balances retribution, deterrence, and legal ethics amid renewed debate.