JUST IN: Brad Sigmon Executed by Firing Squad – His Crime, Last Meal, and Final Words –
On March 7th, 2025, after 23 years on death row, Brad Sigman was executed by firing squad at Broad River Correctional Institution in Colombia, South Carolina. His execution was historic. The first US firing squad execution in 15 years, and Sigman, age 67, became the oldest person ever put to death in South Carolina.
In this video, we will find out what his final meal was and what his final words were. But before we get to that, let’s rewind to where this nightmare began. Because what happened on that day was so horrific, so utterly senseless. Picture this. A quiet suburban neighborhood in Taylor’s, South Carolina.
The kind of place where people know their neighbors, where retirees tend their gardens, and where violence seems like something that only happens in distant cities. It was supposed to be just another ordinary spring morning. But for David and Glattislark, that April day in 2001 would be their last. And the person who would shatter the peace of their home, who would end their lives in the most brutal way imaginable, was someone they probably never imagined would hurt them.
He wasn’t a stranger. He wasn’t some random criminal. He was connected to their family in the worst possible way. Brad Sigman was 29 years old in the spring of 2001, and his life was spiraling. He’d just been dumped by his girlfriend and instead of moving on like most people do after a breakup, he became consumed by it.
The rejection ate at him. It festered. And as the days passed, something dark took root in his mind. He couldn’t let go. He couldn’t accept that it was over. And in his twisted thinking, he began to blame her parents. David and Glattislark, the elderly couple who had done nothing wrong except raise their daughter. On the morning of April 27th, 2001, while most people in Taylor’s were starting their day with coffee and morning routines, Sigman was making his way to the Lark home with murder on his mind.
He didn’t knock. He didn’t ring the doorbell. He broke in. And in his hand, he carried a baseball bat, a simple piece of sports equipment that was about to become a weapon of unimaginable horror. What happened next inside that house was beyond comprehension. David Lark was 62 years old. His wife Glattis was 59.
They were in the autumn of their lives, looking forward to more years together, more time with their family, more peaceful mornings. Instead, they encountered Brad Sigman in their own home. And he showed them no mercy. The violence was methodical. It was prolonged. It was personal. Sigman beat David Lark with a baseball bat. Nine times the bat came down on his head.
Nine crushing blows. Then he turned to Glattis. Nine more blows. Each strike was deliberate. Each one was fatal in its own right. But he didn’t stop. The injuries were so severe, so catastrophic that prosecutors, who had seen decades of crime scenes, would later say these were the most horrific deaths they had ever witnessed.
The couple’s skulls were crushed. The crime scene was something out of a nightmare. But Sigman wasn’t done yet. As if murdering two innocent people in their own home wasn’t enough, when the lark’s daughter arrived home, probably expecting to find her parents going about their normal day, she instead walked into a scene of horror. And there was Sigman waiting for her.
He didn’t try to flee. He didn’t show remorse. Instead, he took her hostage at gunpoint, forcing her into her own vehicle. Can you imagine that terror? coming home to find your parents dead and the k!ller still there, forcing you into a car at gunpoint. Most people would freeze. Most people wouldn’t know what to do.
But this woman made a split-second decision that saved her life. As Sigman drove, as he held her captive in that vehicle, she saw her chance, and she took it. She jumped. She literally threw herself from a moving car. Sigman fired shots at her as she escaped, but somehow miraculously she survived. She hit the ground. She ran and she lived to identify the man who had destroyed her family.
Now Sigman was on the run. The police were called. The manhunt began. And for 11 days, Brad Sigman was a fugitive. Think about that. 11 days of looking over his shoulder. 11 days of running from what he’d done. Did he feel remorse during those days? Did he wish he could take it back? We’ll never really know.
What we do know is that he ran all the way to Gatlinburgg, Tennessee, trying to put as much distance between himself and South Carolina as possible. But you can’t run for murder. You can’t escape what you’ve done. On the 11th day, police caught up with him. The manhunt was over. Brad Sigman was arrested and brought back to South Carolina to face justice for what he’d done to David and Glattis Lark.
When Sigman’s trial began in July 2002, just over a year after the murders, the prosecution painted a picture of a crime so vicious, so unnecessary that it demanded the ultimate punishment. The defense tried to humanize him, tried to explain him. They talked about his drug problems. They talked about his heartbreak over the breakup.
PART 2 👏👏👏
They asked the jury for mercy. But how do you ask for mercy when you showed none? How do you ask a jury to spare your life when you brutally end it to others? Sigman himself reportedly admitted his guilt in court. There was no question about whether he did it. The only question was what his punishment would be.
And after hearing all the evidence, after seeing the crime scene photos, after learning about those nine blows to each victim’s head, the jury made their decision. On July 20th, 2002, they unanimously sentenced Brad Sigman to death. Not just for one murder, but for both, plus 30 years for burglary. The message was clear.
This crime was so heinous that nothing less than the death penalty would be justice. But here’s the thing about death sentences in America. They don’t happen quickly. In fact, they can take decades. Brad Sigman was sent to death row at Broad River Correctional Institution. And there he would sit for the next 23 years. Two decades, almost a quarter of a century.
While he lived, breathed, ate meals, and slept in his cell. The Lark family mourned. While he filed appeal after appeal, their family celebrated holidays without David and Glattis. While he lived, they were gone. And Sigman did appeal relentlessly. Every legal avenue available to him, he took it.
In 2005, his direct appeals were denied. In 2013, more denials. In 2018 and 2020, federal courts rejected his habius corpus claims. These are legal terms for his attempts to say his conviction or sentence was unjust. But court after court looked at the evidence, looked at what he’ done, and said no. Finally, on January 11th, 2021, the US Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, refused to hear his case.
The legal road had come to an end. But even then, Sigman’s execution didn’t happen. Because South Carolina, like many states, was facing a problem. They couldn’t get the drugs needed for lethal injection. Pharmaceutical companies had stopped supplying them for executions. So when Sigman’s first execution date was set for February 12th, 2021, it was stayed at the last minute.
The state literally couldn’t carry out the sentence because they didn’t have the means. This put South Carolina in a bind. They had inmates sentenced to death, but no way to execute them. So the state legislature did something controversial. They reauthorized older methods of execution, methods that hadn’t been used in years.
They brought back the electric chair, that notorious device from another era. And they brought back something even more uncommon, the firing squad. When was the last time you heard of someone being executed by firing squad in America? It sounds like something from the Wild West, from history books, from another century entirely.
Of course, Sigman and other death row inmates immediately sued. They argued that these methods were cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the 8th amendment to the US Constitution. Can you imagine being forced to choose between being electrocuted or shot to death? That’s not a choice anyone should have to make. But in July 2024, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the firing squad was constitutional, legal, allowable.
A few months later, in late 2024, South Carolina resumed executions after a 13-year break. The moratorum was over, and Brad Sigman’s name was on the list. By early 2025, all of Sigman’s legal options had been exhausted. Every appeal denied. Every court had spoken. His execution date was set. March 7th, 2025. And now he had to make that unthinkable choice.
How did he want to die? South Carolina law gave him three options. Lethal injection, electric chair, or firing squad. And Sigman chose the firing squad. Why? In his own words, he feared the electric chair would cook him alive. He feared lethal injection would make him feel like he was drowning in chemicals, but the firing squad, three rifles fired simultaneously at his heart, would be quick. At least that’s what he hoped.
On the evening before his execution, Wednesday, March 5th, 2025, Brad Sigman was served his last meal. It’s a strange tradition, isn’t it? Giving someone facing death whatever they want to eat. But it’s a ritual that goes back generations in American capital punishment. And Sigman chose a hearty southern spread.
He ordered four pieces of fried chicken, crispy, golden, comfort food at its finest. He got green beans, probably cooked southern style with bacon or ham hawks, mashed potatoes swimming in rich gravy, buttery biscuits, a slice of cheesecake for dessert, and to wash it all down, sweet tea, that staple of southern cuisine. The next day, March 7th, 2025, arrived.
Afternoon turned to evening, and at 6:00 p.m., it was time. Brad Sigman, now 67 years old, twice as old as he’d been when he committed his crime, was led into the death chamber. It was a small room specially designed for this purpose. Witnesses were present. State officials, media representatives, perhaps family members of the victims.
They watched as guards strapped Sigman to a wooden chair. Not an electric chair, but a simple chair designed for a firing squad execution. A small white target was placed over his heart. A target like he was at a shooting range instead of a execution chamber. It’s a surreal detail, but it served a purpose to guide the shooters to ensure a quick death.
Then a prison employee placed a hood over Sigman’s head. He could no longer see. He could only wait. But before the hood went on, Sigman’s attorney read his final statement. These were his last words, his final message to the world. And what did he say? Did he apologize to the Lark family? Did he express remorse for the horror he’d inflicted? Did he ask for forgiveness for beating two elderly people to death with a baseball bat? No.
Instead, Sigman used his final breath to make a political statement. He began by saying, “I want my closing statement to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty.” He quoted scripture. He cited Matthew 5:es 38-39 and Romans 6:14. He argued against the Old Testament principle of an eye for an I, emphasizing New Testament teachings on forgiveness and mercy.
He concluded with the assertion that nowhere does God in the New Testament give man the authority to k!ll another man. It was a plea for abolishing capital punishment, an argument for mercy, a call for grace from a man who showed none of that to his victims. The irony wasn’t lost on anyone in that room. Sigman wanted mercy from a system he claimed was unjust.
Yet, he’d given David and Glattis Lark no mercy whatsoever. He quoted scripture about forgiveness, but he’d taken away any chance for his victims to forgive him in person. He talked about love, but his actions on April 27th, 2001 were the opposite of love. At 6:05 p.m., after the hood was placed over his head, the moment arrived.
Behind the curtain, three volunteer executioners, regular citizens who had volunteered for this grim duty, aimed their 308 caliber rifles at the white target over Sigman’s heart. They had been trained. They were ready. The order was given. And they fired. Three shots rang out almost simultaneously. The sound echoed in that small chamber.
All three bullets struck the target, striking Sigman’s chest nearly at once. His body jerked from the impact. And then it was over. Just like that. At 6:08 p.m., just 3 minutes after the shots were fired, a doctor examined Brad Sigman and pronounced him dead. It marked a historic moment, though not one South Carolina was particularly proud of.
It was the first firing squad execution in the United States since 2010 when Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by firing squad in Utah. It was the first time South Carolina had ever used this method. And at 67 years old, Sigman became the oldest person ever executed in South Carolina’s history. The execution brought to a close a case that had spanned nearly a quarter century.
From the brutal double murder in 2001, through the trial in 2002, through 23 years of appeals and legal battles, through changing laws and execution moratoriums, Brad Sigman’s story finally ended in that death chamber. The wheels of justice had turned slowly, but they had turned. For the Lark family, there’s no real closure.
David and Glattis are still gone. That daughter who jumped from a moving car to escape still carries the trauma of that day. She still lost her parents in the most violent way imaginable. She still came home to find the murdered. No execution can undo that. No amount of justice can bring them back. But Brad Sigman faced the consequences of his actions.
After 23 years of living while his victims lay in graves, he finally paid the price. The state of South Carolina carried out the sentence exactly as the law required, ending the life of a man who had ended two others so brutally, so senselessly over a breakup he couldn’t get past. This case raises so many questions, doesn’t it, about justice, about mercy, about the death penalty itself.
Was Sigman right in his final words? Should we end capital punishment or was his execution justice served? There’s no easy answer. What we can say with certainty is that on April 27th, 2001, two innocent people were murdered in their own home for no good reason. And on March 7th, 2025, the man who k!lled them was executed by firing squad.
That’s the story of Brad Sigman. From a 29-year-old man who couldn’t handle rejection to a 67-year-old facing three rifles pointed at his chest. It’s a story about violence, about consequences, about how one moment of rage can destroy multiple lives, not just the victims, but the perpetrators as well.
Whatever your views on capital punishment, one thing remains clear. Nothing that happened in that death chamber could ever undo the horror of what happened in that home in Taylor’s, South Carolina so many years ago.
