# ‘Etched in my mind’: reporter describes South Carolina firing squad execution

Jeffrey Collins of the Associated Press who witnessed the execution of a convicted murderer by firing squad has described the experience, saying that the killing was now “etched” in his mind.

Jeffrey Collins, who has witnessed executions in South Carolina for the news agency for 21 years and has seen 11 people killed using three methods, wrote a short essay about the experience.

He witnessed three volunteers from the prison service shoot Brad Sigmon dead on Friday evening. Sigmon was the oldest person to be executed in the state’s history and his death was part of a series of rapid killings the state has pursued in the last six months as it revives capital punishment.

After a 13-year pause, South Carolina now directs men on death row to choose their method of death – electric chair, lethal injection or firing squad. The development has been widely condemned by human rights activists and anti-death penalty groups.

Sigmon, who was convicted of the 2001 murders of his ex-girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke, chose to be shot to death due to unclear information about drugs used in legal injections and fears they could take a long time to work.

“As a journalist you want to ready yourself for an assignment. You research a case. You read about the subject,” Collins wrote.

“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,” he added.

Collins then went on to detail the firing squad and experience of witnessing it.

“It’s impossible to know what to expect when you’ve never seen someone shot at close range right in front of you,” he said.

“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,” he wrote.

“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 6:08pm.

“Then we left through the same door we came in,” he added.

Sigmon’s lawyers have said it was “barbaric” to make the men on death row choose the method of their death and argued the state was obliged to provide more information about lethal injection drugs. His last words included a plea for an end to the death penalty.

His last words, shared by his attorneys, read in part: “I want my closing statement to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty. An eye for an eye was used as justification to the jury for seeking the death penalty. At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that was.”

Collins’ essay also detailed the impact of witnessing the shooting.

“I won’t forget the crack of the rifles Friday and that target disappearing. Also etched in my mind: Sigmon talking or mouthing toward his lawyer, trying to let him know he was OK before the hood went on,” he wrote.
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