Stephen Corey Bryant Execution Crimes, Last Meal & Final Words | South Carolina Death Row (US)
Most people have heard of lethal injection. Some know about the electric chair, but only a tiny handful of people in modern America have ever faced the firing squad. And in 2025, one of them was a man named Steven Corey Bryant. At just 23 years old, Bryant went on an 8-day rampage through rural South Carolina, leaving three people gone, another seriously wounded, and an entire county frozen in fear.
What pushed a young man described as nice, polite, and even friendly to transform into someone who left taunting messages in blood and sparked one of the most disturbing manhunts in the state’s history. His story doesn’t start with brutality. It starts with something far more confusing and the mystery only deepens from there.
But before we dive into the darkest chapters, let’s rewind 8 days before law enforcement finally got his name. In early October 2004, nothing about Steven Cory Bryant suggested he was about to make headlines. He worked. He had a girlfriend. He had friends who trusted him enough to go fishing with him. But beneath that ordinary surface, experts later said he showed signs of antisocial behavior and impulsivity.
The kind of traits that don’t seem dangerous until they collide with opportunity. On October 5th, Bryant committed a burglary. No one realized it was the start of something much worse. 3 days later, on October 8th, he broke into another house and this time he found a40 caliber Smith and Wesson. And that’s when everything snapped.
Later that same day, a 56-year-old man named Clinton Brown was fishing by the river, minding his own business. Out of nowhere, he felt a blast of pain tear through his back. Bryant had shot him and walked away. But Brown wasn’t done fighting. Despite everything, he managed to drag himself to his vehicle and drive to the hospital. He lived.
And investigators would later say that if he hadn’t, they might have lost the only early witness who could describe the shooter’s behavior. A man acting with no hesitation and no remorse. But this wasn’t the whole story because Bryant was just getting started. The next victim wasn’t a stranger. It wasn’t a random person on a road.
It was Clifton Dale Gay, someone Bryant knew deeply. They fished together. They hung out with each other’s families. They were friends. On October 9th, just one day after shooting Clinton Brown, the two went out to buy beer. By all accounts, nothing seemed strange. Nothing seemed tense. But somewhere along that drive, something shifted.
Bryant pulled out the stolen handgun and shot Gayy in the head. He left his friend’s body on a quiet rural road and walked away. This wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. This wasn’t a fight. It was sudden, cold, and personal. And to this day, no one knows what triggered it. What happened next shocked even experienced investigators.
Bryant drove straight to Geney’s rented trailer, stole electronics and an aquarium, and then set the trailer on fire. One of Gay’s sons later said the family never understood how someone could do that to a man who treated Bryant like a brother. But the horror wasn’t over because Bryant had more violence in him. And his next crime scene was even worse.
On October 11th, Bryant broke into the home of Willard Irving Teen, a retired Air Force sergeant known for his kindness and reliability. He wasn’t wealthy. He wasn’t involved in anything criminal. He was simply at home going about his day. Bryant shot him nine times. But it didn’t end there.
Authorities said the crime scene was unlike anything they’d seen in decades. Bryant removed a ring from the victim’s hand. He used a cigarette to burn the victim’s face and eyes, an act investigators could never fully explain. And then the phone rang. It was Tjun’s wife. Bryant answered. He told her her husband was gone.
Minutes later, the phone rang again. This time, it was Tjun’s daughter. Bryant told her the same thing calmly. Before leaving the house, he dipped his fingers into Teen’s blood and wrote, “Victim 4 in 2 weeks. Catch me if you can.” Investigators said the message didn’t match any known pattern of behavior from Bryant’s past.
It wasn’t something he’d ever done before. Some experts claimed it looked like a taunt. Others suggested it was performative, something he did because he wanted to look like a different kind of killer. Rumors later circulated that Bryant bragged about the message after his arrest, but those claims were never confirmed. Still, the handwriting was his, and the intent behind it was chilling.
Families across Sumpter County began locking their doors. People who had known Bryant, friends, co-workers, even his landlord, told reporters they were stunned. They described him as nice, laid-back, and even soft-spoken. But 2 days later, another killing proved that whatever version of Bryant they knew, that man was gone.
While awaiting trial, Bryant showed that the same violent impulses were still active. In October 2005, he assaulted a correctional officer. That same month, reports claimed he threw urine onto another inmate’s door, splashing the man through the bars. None of this helped his case. Prosecutor Kelly Jackson announced in 2007 that the state would seek the death penalty for the murder of Tichin, a killing that prosecutors called sadistic and deliberate.
And when the case finally reached court, the picture of Bryant’s past became tangled in tragedy and anger. Because while prosecutors painted him as cold and calculated, the defense introduced a completely different narrative. On August 8th, 2008, Bryant plead guilty to all charges. Three killings, multiple burglaries, weapons offenses, arson, and robbery. There was no plea deal.
He simply admitted everything. But the sentencing phase was where things took a dramatic turn. His lawyers argued that Bryant’s entire life had been shaped by trauma, specifically childhood sexual abuse that he said haunted him into adulthood. They also pointed to years of drug use that allegedly caused brain damage, impairing his judgment.
According to them, Bryant wasn’t born evil. He was someone trying to numb pain he never processed. They said the killings were carried out during a period of emotional collapse fueled by addiction, trauma, and untreated psychological damage. But prosecutors countered all of this. They argued Brian’s actions were intentional, cruel, and methodical, especially the torture of teaching and the phone calls to the victim’s family.
In the end, the judge agreed with the prosecution. On September 11th, 2008, 27-year-old Steven Bryant was sentenced to death. He also received two life sentences for the other killings. But Bryant wasn’t done fighting, not even close. Bryant was sent to Broad River Correctional Institution where he spent 17 years on death row.
During that time, he was disciplined twice. Once for fighting, once for possessing a weapon. His appeals were long, complex, and filled with medical claims. He argued he suffered from intellectual limitations and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder caused by his mother’s reported alcoholism during pregnancy. His lawyers claimed this impaired his ability to make rational decisions and contributed to his violent behavior.
Courts rejected these arguments one by one. 2011, South Carolina Supreme Court rejects his direct appeal. 2025, the fourth US Circuit Court rejects his final federal appeal. October 2025, the US Supreme Court rejects his last hope. And that’s when the countdown began. On October 17th, 2025, the state signed Brian’s death warrant and set his execution date for November 14th, 2025.
South Carolina allows condemned inmates to choose between firing squad, electric chair, or lethal injection. If you don’t pick, the electric chair is automatic. Bryant was given a deadline, October 31. His lawyers tried to delay the warrant, arguing that a federal government shutdown had slowed their work.
The court didn’t accept it. So on Halloween, the deadline day, Bryant made his choice. He chose the firing squad. He became the third person in modern South Carolina history to do so. And even with the date set, one final legal storm was brewing. On November 6th, Bryant’s lawyers filed one last appeal. They argued he was a product of prenatal drug and alcohol exposure and that this brain damage made him less responsible for his actions.
Prosecutors shot back hard, saying Bryant had been methodical, cunning, and took pleasure in a deadly rampage, especially in the way he desecrated Teachin’s body. On November 10th, the appeal was denied. His very last option was clemency from Governor Henry McMaster, something no condemned inmate had ever received in modern South Carolina.
Minutes before the execution, the governor rejected the request. That afternoon, Bryant was given his last meal. Spicy mixed seafood stir fry, fried fish over rice, egg rolls, stuffed shrimp, two candy bars, and German chocolate cake. He made no final statement. At 6:05 p.m. November 14th, 2025, Steven Corey Bryant was executed by firing squad at Broad River Correctional Institution.
He was 44 years old. And with that, an 8-day rampage that began in 2004 finally reached its end more than 20 decades later. Looking back, the story of Steven Corey Bryant raises a question people still argue about today. Was he a man shaped by trauma who spiraled out of control? Or was he someone who embraced cruelty and left behind a trail of pain with full awareness of what he was doing? His victim’s family spent years waiting for closure, years of hearings, appeals, delays, and emotional reliving of what happened. For them, the story wasn’t
about debates or psychological theories. It was about the lives Bryant took, the family shattered, and the wounds that never fully healed. And while the firing squad execution drew national attention, the deeper tragedy is what happened before it. the lives cut short and the families left behind.
If you’re watching this, drop your thoughts below. Would you say Bryant was shaped by his past, or was this a side of him waiting to emerge? Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell if you want more deep dive stories like this one, because the next case is even more unbelievable.
