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stephen bryant44-year-old convicted murderer will face fire brigade In South Carolina On Friday, it is the third such instance in the state execution This year.
Bryant was condemned for killing three people in five days in a rural area in 2004.
His execution, scheduled for 6 p.m. at Columbia’s Broad River Correctional Institution, will be carried out by three volunteer prison staff, each armed with live ammunition.
With no appeal pending, Bryant’s last hope remains Mercy The decision, from the Governor, will be announced a few minutes earlier.
No South Carolina governor has granted clemency since the US reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
The firing squad, with its violent global history in military discipline and political repression, has recently been revived in the US, with some lawmakers arguing that it offers the quickest and most humane method of execution.
This is because many executions have been thwarted by other methods, including lethal injection drugs. South Carolina and other states have struggled to maintain an adequate supply of lethal injection drugs.
Partly because of this, South Carolina imposed a moratorium on executions for 13 years. The state reopened in September 2024, after which four people were executed by lethal injection and two by firing squad. This state is one of several states where the electric chair is still legal.
Execution by firing squad is still legal in Idaho and is also a backup method if others are not available in Oklahoma and Mississippi.
2004 murders
Bryant confessed to killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen in October 2004 after stopping at his secluded home in rural Sumner County and saying he was in car trouble.
Tietjen was shot several times. Prosecutors said Bryant then answered Tietjen’s phone after calling several times and told both his wife and daughter that he was a stalker and that he had killed them.
Investigators said Bryant burned Tietjen’s eyes with a cigarette after shooting him and wrote “Catch me if you can” and other derogatory messages in the victim’s blood on the wall.
Bryant also killed two other people – one before Tietjen and one after him. He gave people rides and when they pulled out to urinate on the side of the road, he shot them in the back, authorities said.
During the search, officers stopped almost everyone driving on dirt roads in the area just east of Columbia, and asked people to be wary of anyone they didn’t know asking for help.
Bryant’s lawyers said he was troubled in the months before the murder, seeking help from a probation agent and his aunt because he could not stop thinking about being sexually abused by a group of relatives as a child. He said he tried to deal with it by spraying bug killer, using meth and smoking joints.
Bryant will be the 43rd person to be executed on court order in the US so far this year. At least 14 other people are scheduled to be put to death during the remainder of 2025 and next year.
Bryant will be the 50th person executed in South Carolina since the death penalty resumed in the state 40 years ago.
What happens during a firing squad execution
At 6 p.m. Friday, the curtains will open on Columbia Prison’s death chamber, with fewer than a dozen witnesses sitting behind bulletproof glass.
Bryant would be tied to a chair. A doctor will place a white square aimed at the red bull’s eye over his heart.
If Bryant’s attorney has a closing statement, he can read it. A prison employee would then place a hood over Bryant’s head, walk into the small room and open a black shed where the firing squad waited.
Without audible or visual warning to witnesses, shooters would fire high-powered rifles from up to 15 feet (4.6 m) away.
Then within a minute or two a doctor will come out, examine him and declare him dead.
Lawyers for the last person executed by firing squad said The shooter almost missed Mikal Mahdi’s heartHe barely struck the lower portion of the heart, suggesting that the Mahdi remained in pain three or four times longer than he would have been if his heart had been attacked directly, according to experts,