Brad Sigmon

"I couldn't have her. I wasn't going to let anybody else have her."

"I want my closing statement to be one of love and a calling to [his] fellow Christians to end the death penalty. An eye for an eye was used as justification to the jury for seeking the death penalty. Why? Because we no longer live under the Old Testament law but now live under the New Testament. [...] We are now under God's grace and mercy."

"[The electric chair would] burn and cook him alive, but the alternative is just as monstrous. If he chose lethal injection, he risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September — three men Brad knew and cared for — who remained alive, strapped to a gurney, for more than twenty minutes. He does not wish to inflict that pain on his family, the witnesses, or the execution team. But, given South Carolina's unnecessary and unconscionable secrecy, Brad is choosing as best he can."

"When Brad went to prison, he rededicated himself to his Christian faith. He has devoted every day since to prayer, repentance, and the work of redemption. Brad is a peaceful, trusted presence on death row. Guards describe him as respectful and helpful. He serves as an informal chaplain to his fellow prisoners. He is a source of strength to his siblings and children. He is also in declining health and poses a danger to no one."

"I did see a splash of blood when the bullets entered his body. It was not a huge amount, but there was a splash that you could see kind of protrude from the wound. [...] His arms flexed. There was something in his midsection that moved. I'm not necessarily going to call them breaths. I don't really know. But there was some movement that went on there for two or three seconds. It was very fast."

"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."

"He expressed remorse every day of his incarceration at the violence that he caused and sought to be a different person since his incarceration. [He] tried to be as supportive and loving as kind as possible to everyone in his midst, whether that was his neighbors on death row, whether that was corrections officers, whether that was pen pals and family members that he was supporting from afar, emotionally and spiritually."

"He knows what the firing squad is going to do to his body — he knows it's going to break his bones, he knows it's gonna pulverize his organs. And it's a measure of how impossible the choice was here."