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Stephen Bryant, 44, a man South Carolina‘S death row Notorious for baffling investigators with letters written in his victim’s blood, he has chosen to die by firing squad.
His execution The trial, scheduled for Nov. 14, would become the third to face the state’s latest method this year.
Bryant was condemned for the murder of Willard “TJ” Tietjen. Investigators said he burned Tietjen’s eyes with a cigarette after shooting him, then wrote “Catch me if you can” on the wall with the victim’s blood. He also terrorized Sumter County in October 2004, shooting and killing two other people as they tried to protect themselves on the side of the road.
Bryant’s decision to die after being shot by three volunteers from 15 feet (4.6 m) away means a court battle about the execution is likely to take place in the next two weeks.
Lawyers for the second and most recent man to be shot and killed said the shooters almost hit Mikal Mahdi’s heart. He suggested that the Mahdi would have remained in pain three or four times longer, according to experts, than if his heart had been attacked directly. They released autopsy photos and questioned why only two bullets showed entry wounds when three people fired shots.
Witnesses reported numerous moans and groans from Mahdi that did not occur during Brad Sigmon’s first firing squad execution. It took even longer – about 80 seconds – for Mahdi to take his last breath.
Prison officials said the execution went as planned and the shooters were only supposed to hit the heart, not destroy it. He said that when volunteers practice shooting, two bullets often enter the body at the same place.
Experts hired by Mahdi’s lawyers who reviewed the autopsy said the bullet holes in his body were not jagged enough to be made by two bullets.
South Carolina incorporated firing squads during a 13-year moratorium on executions, partly because the state could not obtain the drugs needed for lethal injection.
Since 1977, only three other prisoners have been executed by firing squad in the US. All were in Utah, most recently Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.
Bryant’s execution will be the eighth in South Carolina since executions resume in September 2024. All others have chosen execution by lethal injection. The state also has an electric chair.
Bryant confessed to killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen after stopping at his secluded home in rural Sumner County and saying he was in car trouble.
Tietjen was shot several times. Candles were lit around his body. Someone took a potholder made by his daughter as a child, dipped the corner of it in blood and wrote on the wall, “4 victims in 2 weeks. Catch me if you can,” authorities said.
Tietjen’s daughter called him several times, becoming more worried when he did not answer. On the sixth call, she testified that a strange voice came and said he had killed Tietjen.
Prosecutors said Bryant also killed two people – one before Tietjen and one after. He gave people rides and shot them in the back as they pulled out to urinate along deserted, rural roads.
Bryant’s lawyers said he was troubled in the months before the murder, pleading for help from a probation agent and his aunt because he couldn’t stop thinking about being sexually abused by four male relatives when he was a child.
His defense attorneys said Bryant tried to protect himself from pain by using meth and smoking joints, and he sprayed bug killer.
A total of 41 people have died by court-ordered execution in the US this year, and at least 18 more are scheduled to die during the remainder of 2025 and next year.
Bryant’s death will be the 50th execution in South Carolina since the death penalty was reinstated 40 years ago.