Who is Brad Keith Sigmon, the South Carolina Death Row inmate who chose the firing squad

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Editor's note: Brad Keith Sigmon was executed Friday by firing squad. Follow along here.

When his girlfriend of five years broke up with him, Brad Keith Sigmon snapped.

Sigmon killed her parents, David and Gladys Larke, in their home, hitting them each nine times with a baseball bat. He then kidnapped his ex and shot her once after she jumped out of his speeding car. She survived.

Sigmon, who is set to be executed by firing squad in South Carolina on Friday, has always admitted to murdering the Larkes in 2001.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am guilty," Sigmon told jurors at his trial, according to archived coverage in the Greenville News, part of the Paste BN Network. "I have no excuse for what I did. It’s my fault and I’m not trying to blame nobody else for it, and I’m sorry."

Meanwhile his ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Armstrong, told Paste BN − in her first interview in the 24 years since her parents' murder − that Sigmon's actions ripped her family apart and that "he should answer for what he's done," though she doesn't believe in the death penalty.

If Sigmon's execution moves forward, he will become the first inmate in South Carolina executed by firing squad in modern history and the fourth in the U.S. since 1977. Sigmon chose the method over the electric chair or lethal injection, with his attorneys citing the unreliability of the execution drug and the barbarity of an "ancient electric chair, which would burn and cook him alive."

As his execution approaches, Paste BN is looking back at his crime, who his victims were and what to expect from the nation's first firing squad execution in 15 years.

Firing squad execution: Is the 'barbaric' method making a comeback?

Brad Keith Sigmon murders the Larkes

On April 27, 2001, Sigmon showed up at Armstrong's parents' house with a plan that he hatched while doing crack cocaine the night before: He was going to tie up David and Gladys Larke and kidnap his ex, he told police.

Instead, he beat the couple to death with a baseball bat, hitting each of them nine times, according to police and a medical examiner's report. Sigmon kidnapped Armstrong in his car but she jumped out of the moving vehicle and was able to escape, though Sigmon shot her once in the foot before his gun ran out of bullets, according to court records.

Sigmon has always admitted to his guilt, telling jurors at his 2002 trial that he had no excuse for what he did, saying that when Armstrong fell out of love with him, it "set me off," according to the Greenville News.

“I was obsessed with her," he told jurors. "Did I love her? More than anything else in the world."

He continued to tell jurors that the death penalty was probably appropriate in his case, saying: "I hate what I did."

“Do I deserve to die? I probably do," he said. "I don’t want to die. It would kill my mom, my brothers and my sisters … I just want to live for my family’s sake.”

The Larkes' family says they were their 'glue'

Jurors in Sigmon's murder trial also heard from family members of David and Gladys Larke, who were 62 and 59, respectively, when they were killed. Their adult children wept on the witness stand and spoke of their devastation.

"I am who I am because of him (my dad) and my mom," Darrell Larke said, according to the Greenville News. "He taught me how to fish, how to hunt, how to enjoy life, how to be responsible."

Armstrong told Paste BN this week that her parents were simple country folks who had five children and were always looking out for everyone. Her mom loved cooking up a feast for the whole family and her dad "had a good heart" who was quick to forgive and ask forgiveness.

"They were the glue of the family," Armstrong said, adding that they've missed the births of some of their eight grandchildren and five great-grand children since they were murdered. "He took that away."

She said she does not plan on attending the execution, but her son, Ricky Sims, told the Greenville News that he will be there.

“He's going to pay for what he’s done,” Sims said. “He took away two people who would have done anything for their family. They were the rock of our family ... They didn't deserve it."

Brad Keith Sigmon's attorneys cite mental illness

Before the murders, Sigmon was as "a hard worker and a loving brother who worked factory shifts as a teenager to make sure his brothers and sisters could eat," his attorney, Gerald “Bo” King, said in a statement.

He said that Sigmon became a "tortured" man because of an undiagnosed mental illness that caused "irrational and impulsive episodes," something he tried to treat with street drugs.

"And that Brad, who was already struggling with organic brain damage and grief from his violent childhood, succumbed to a psychotic break," King said. "The jury that sentenced him had no idea of how severely compromised his mental health was, or that he was probably incompetent even to stand trial."

Armstrong said that she and Sigmon were best friends for five years before their romance began. Armstrong, who had three children at that point, said that while Sigmon had anger issues and slapped her once, she never would have imagined him capable of the evil he committed.

Since he's been in prison, King said Sigmon has been "transformed" to a repentant, God-loving man and a "peaceful, trusted presence on Death Row."

"He serves as an informal chaplain to his fellow prisoners," King said. "He is a source of strength to his siblings and children. He is also in declining health and poses a danger to no one."   

More about the nation's first firing squad execution since 2010

In a statement to Paste BN, the South Carolina Department of Corrections said the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia has been renovated to conduct firing squads.

The inmate will sit restrained in a metal chair in the corner of a room shared by the state's electric chair, "which can't be moved," the department said in its firing squad protocols provided to Paste BN.

There will be three members to the firing squad team − voluntary corrections staff − and all will stand behind a wall with loaded rifles 15 feet from the inmate. The wall will have an opening that that won't be visible from the witness room."The inmate will be strapped into the chair, and a hood will be placed over his head," the department said. "A small aim point will be placed over his heart by a member of the execution team. After the warden reads the execution order, the team will fire. After the shots, a doctor will examine the inmate. After the inmate is declared dead, the curtain will be drawn and witnesses escorted out."

Witnesses to the execution, which typically involve family members of both the inmate and victim, members of the news media, attorneys and prison staff, "will see the right-side profile of the inmate."

The department said that bullet-resistant glass has been installed between the death chamber and the witness room.

The modern history of firing squad executions in the US

As lethal injection drugs have become harder to obtain, states with the death penalty have looked to expand their methods to more controversial options like firing squads and nitrogen gas, which was first used in the U.S. in January 2024 in Alabama with the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith. Three other inmates in Alabama have been executed by nitrogen gas since, Louisiana is about to execute its first inmate using the method this month, and Arkansas is now considering adopting it.

Five states − South Carolina Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho  − have legalized firing squads as an execution method, most recently Idaho in 2023.

The last inmate in the U.S. to be killed by firing squad was in 2010, when Utah executed Ronnie Lee Gardner for killing a man during a robbery. Both other firing squad executions were in Utah, Gary Mark Gilmore in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996.

Among the witnesses to Gardner’s execution was an Associated Press reporter who said that five volunteer prison staff members fired at him from about 25 feet away with .30-caliber rifles, aiming at a target pinned over his chest as he sat in a chair. One of the rifles had a blank so none of the volunteers knew whether they fired a fatal bullet, AP reported.

Gardner was pronounced dead two minutes after the shots rang out, faster than both lethal injection or nitrogen gas.

King, Sigmon's attorney, said in a statement that "there is no justice" with Friday's execution.

"Everything about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity − from the choice to the method itself − is abjectly cruel," he said. "We should not just be horrified – we should be furious.”