COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat was executed by firing squad Friday, the first U.S. prisoner in 15 years to die by that method, which he saw as preferable to the electric chair or lethal injection.
Three volunteer prison employees used rifles to carry out the execution of Brad Sigmon, 67, who was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m.
Sigmon killed David and Gladys Larke in their Greenville County home in 2001 in a botched plot to kidnap their daughter. He told police he planned to take her for a romantic weekend, then kill her and himself.
Sigmon’s lawyers said he chose the firing squad because the electric chair would “cook him alive,” and he feared that a lethal injection of pentobarbital into his veins would send a rush of fluid and blood into his lungs and drown him.
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Vivian Lovingood protests the scheduled execution of South Carolina inmate Brad Sigmon, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Columbia, S.C. For the first time in 15 years a death row inmate in the U.S. will be executed by a firing squad. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Vivian Lovingood protests the scheduled execution of South Carolina inmate Brad Sigmon, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Columbia, S.C. For the first time in 15 years a death row inmate in the U.S. will be executed by a firing squad. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
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The details of South Carolina’s lethal injection method are kept secret in South Carolina, and Sigmon unsuccessfully asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to pause his execution because of that.
On Friday, Sigmon wore a black jumpsuit with a hood over his head and a white target with a red bullseye over his chest.
The armed prison employees stood 15 feet (4.6 meters) from where he sat in the state’s death chamber — the same distance as the backboard is from the free-throw line on a basketball court. Visible in the same small room was the state’s unused electric chair. The gurney used to carry out lethal injections had been rolled away.
The volunteers all fired at the same time through openings in a wall. They were not visible to about a dozen witnesses in a room separated from the chamber by bullet-resistant glass. Sigmon made several heavy breaths during the two minutes that elapsed from when the hood was placed to the shots being fired.
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The shots, which sounded like they were fired at the same time, made a loud, jarring bang that caused witnesses to flinch. His arms briefly tensed when he was shot, and the target was blasted off his chest. He appeared to give another breath or two with a red stain on his chest, and small amounts of tissue could be seen from the wound during those breaths.
A doctor came out about a minute later and examined Sigmon for 90 seconds before declaring him dead.
Witnesses included three family members of the Larkes. Also present were Sigmon’s attorney and spiritual advisor, a representative from the prosecuting solicitor’s office, a sheriff’s investigator and three members of the news media.
Capital punishment protesters pray on the grounds of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the scheduled execution of inmate Oscar Smith, Thursday, April 21, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
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Capital punishment protesters pray on the grounds of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the scheduled execution of inmate Oscar Smith, Thursday, April 21, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
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Sigmon’s lawyer read a closing statement that he said was “one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty.”
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Prison spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said Sigmon’s last meal was four pieces of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, cheesecake and sweet tea.
The firing squad is an execution method with a long and violent history in the U.S. and around the world. Death in a hail of bullets has been used to punish mutinies and desertion in armies, as frontier justice in America’s Old West and as a tool of terror and political repression in the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Since 1977 only three other prisoners in the U.S. have been executed by firing squad. All were in Utah, most recently Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010. Another Utah man, Ralph Menzies, could be next; he is awaiting the result of a hearing in which his lawyers argued that his dementia makes him unfit for execution.
In South Carolina on Friday, a group of protesters holding signs with messages such as “All life is precious” and “Execute justice not people” gathered outside the prison before Sigmon’s execution.
Supporters and lawyers for Sigmon asked Republican Gov. Henry McMaster to commute his sentence to life in prison. They said he was a model prisoner trusted by guards and worked every day to atone for the killings and also that he committed the killings after succumbing to severe mental illness.
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Bill Scicchitano prays outside the execution of South Carolina inmate Brad Sigmon, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Bill Scicchitano prays outside the execution of South Carolina inmate Brad Sigmon, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
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But McMaster denied the clemency plea. No governor has ever commuted a death sentence in the state, where 46 other prisoners have been executed since the death penalty resumed in the U.S. in 1976. Seven have died in the electric chair and 39 others by lethal injection.
Gerald “Bo” King, chief of the capital habeas unit in the federal public defender’s office, said Sigmon “used his final statement to call on his fellow people of faith to end the death penalty and spare the lives of the 28 men still locked up on South Carolina’s death row.”
“It is unfathomable that, in 2025, South Carolina would execute one of its citizens in this bloody spectacle,” King said in a statement. “But South Carolina has ended the life of a man who has devoted himself to his faith, and to ministry and service to all around him. Brad admitted his guilt at trial and shared his deep grief for his crimes with his jury and, in the years since, with everyone who knew him.”
In the early 2000s, South Carolina was among the busiest death penalty states, carrying out an average of three executions a year. But officials suspended executions for 13 years, in part because they were unable to obtain lethal injection drugs.
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The state Supreme Court cleared the way to resume them in July. Freddie Owens was the first to be put to death, on Sept. 20, after McMaster denied him clemency. Richard Moore was executed on Nov. 1 and Marion Bowman Jr. on Jan. 31.
Going forward the court will allow an execution every five weeks.
South Carolina now has 28 inmates on its death row including two who have exhausted their appeals and are awaiting execution, most likely this spring. Just one man has been added to death row in the past decade.
Before executions were paused, more than 60 people faced death sentences. Many of those have either had their sentences reduced to life or died in prison.
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Associated Press writer Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed.
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President Trump continues to suggest that the U.S. will have a lengthy and active role in Venezuela after capturing the ousted president Nicolás Maduro. Trump has proposed several plans for Venezuela’s future government and economy. In those proposals, U.S. companies are expected to play a key role.
President Trump dances as he departs after speaking during a House Republican retreat at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington, DC. House Republicans will discuss their 2026 legislative agenda at the meeting.
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🎧 Trump and his aides are unclear about the future of Venezuela, NPR’s Franco Ordoñez tells Up First. When the president says the U.S. will run the country, many eyes are on Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller, known for his stringent immigration policies, is one of the U.S. officials overseeing Venezuela. Ordoñez also says Miller has more recently described ruling over the hemisphere by force.
➡️ Last night, Trump posted on social media that Venezuela will turn over between 30 million and 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the U.S. While seizing current oil production is one thing, overhauling Venezuela’s oil industry requires a far greater effort. Here’s why.
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On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Trump held a “Save America” rally at the Ellipse, a site near the White House and U.S. Capitol. Multiple speakers promoted voter fraud myths and urged Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election. Meanwhile, a group of 200 Proud Boys marched toward the Capitol. Before Trump’s speech ended, violence erupted on Capitol grounds. The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol “was the most videotaped crime in American history, if not world history,” according to Greg Rosen, a former federal prosecutor who led the Justice Department unit that investigated the riot. But conspiracy theories still falsely label the assault a “normal tourist visit.” NPR’s review of thousands of court videos shows rioters assaulting officers with weapons, calling for executions and looting the building. These videos show the exact timing of events as they occurred. Corresponding maps show the locations where the conflict took place.
To learn more, explore NPR’s database of federal criminal cases from Jan. 6. You can also see more of NPR’s reporting on the topic.
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The tin soldier, a marionette puppet made by Nicolas Coppola and the main character in “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” show at Puppetworks.
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For more than 30 years, Puppetworks has staged classics like The Tortoise and the Hare, Pinocchio, Aladdin and more in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood. Every weekend, children gather on foam mats and colored blocks to watch wooden renditions of the shows. The company’s founder and artistic director, 90-year-old Nicolas Coppola, has been a professional puppeteer since 1954. The theater has puppets of all types, including marionettes, swing, hand, and rod. They transport attendees back to the 1980s, when most of these puppets were made. Over the years, Coppola has updated the show’s repertoire to better meet the cultural moment. Step inside his world with these images.
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This tiny forest in Los Angeles, CA is one of many micro-forests around the world offering green space and contributing to local biodiversity.
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Scientists are establishing micro-forests in big cities to boost biodiversity and rejuvenate compromised land. Short Wave producer Rachel Carlson visited California’s largest micro-forest. Tune in to hear her account of the experience.
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Amazon has been accused of listing products from independent retailers without their consent, even as the ecommerce giant sues start-up Perplexity over its AI software shopping without permission.
The $2.5tn online retailer has listed some independent shops’ full inventory on its platform without seeking permission, four business owners told the Financial Times, enabling customers to shop through Amazon rather than buy directly.
Two independent retailers told the FT that they had also received orders for products that were either out of stock or were mispriced and mislabelled by Amazon leading to customer complaints.
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“Nobody opted into this,” said Angie Chua, owner of Bobo Design Studio, a stationery store based in Los Angeles.
Tech companies are experimenting with artificial intelligence “agents” that can perform tasks like shopping autonomously based on user instructions.
Amazon has blocked agents from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and a host of other AI start-ups from its website.
It filed a lawsuit in November against Perplexity, whose Comet browser was making purchases on Amazon on behalf of users, alleging that the company’s actions risked undermining user privacy and violated its terms of service.
In its complaint, Amazon said Perplexity had taken steps “without prior notice to Amazon and without authorisation” and that it degraded a customer shopping experience it had invested in over several decades.
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Perplexity in a statement at the time said that the lawsuit was a “bully tactic” aimed at scaring “disruptive companies like Perplexity” from improving customers’ experience.
The recent complaints against Amazon relate to its “Buy for Me” function, launched last April, which lets some customers purchase items that are not listed with Amazon but on other retailers’ sites.
Retailers said Amazon did not seek their permission before sending them orders that were placed on the ecommerce site. They do not receive the user’s email address or other information that might be helpful for generating future sales, several sellers told the FT.
“We consciously avoid Amazon because our business is rooted in community and building a relationship with customers,” Chua said. “I don’t know who these customers are.”
Several of the independent retailers said Amazon’s move had led to poor experiences for customers, or hurt their business.
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Sarah Hitchcock Burzio, the owner of Hitchcock Paper Co. in Virginia, said that Amazon had mislabelled items leading to a surge in orders as customers believed they were receiving more expensive versions of a product at a much lower price.
“There were no guardrails set up so when there were issues there was nobody I could go to,” she said.
Product returns and complaints for the “Buy for Me” function are handled by sellers rather than Amazon, even when errors are produced by the Seattle-based group.
Amazon enables sellers to opt out of the service by contacting the company on a specific email address.
Amazon said: “Shop Direct and Buy for Me are programmes we’re testing that help customers discover brands and products not currently sold in Amazon’s store, while helping businesses reach new customers and drive incremental sales.
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“We have received positive feedback on these programmes. Businesses can opt out at any time.”
President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States, to be sold at market value and with the proceeds controlled by the US.
Interim authorities in Venezuela will turn over “sanctioned oil” Trump said on Truth Social.
The US will use the proceeds “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” he wrote.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been directed to “execute this plan, immediately,” and the barrels “will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”
CNN has reached out to the White House for more information.
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A senior administration official, speaking under condition of anonymity, told CNN that the oil has already been produced and put in barrels. The majority of it is currently on boats and will now go to US facilities in the Gulf to be refined.
Although 30 to 50 million barrels of oil sounds like a lot, the United States consumed just over 20 million barrels of oil per day over the past month.
That amount may lower oil prices a bit, but it probably won’t lower Americans’ gas prices that much: Former President Joe Biden released about four to six times as much — 180 million barrels of oil — from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2022, which lowered gas prices by only between 13 cents and 31 cents a gallon over the course of four months, according to a Treasury Department analysis.
US oil fell about $1 a barrel, or just under 2%, to $56, immediately after Trump made his announcement on Truth Social.
Selling up to 50 million barrels could raise quite a bit of revenue: Venezuelan oil is currently trading at $55 per barrel, so if the United States can find buyers willing to pay market price, it could raise between $1.65 billion and $2.75 billion from the sale.
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Venezuela has built up significant stockpiles of crude over since the United States began its oil embargo late last year. But handing over that much oil to the United States may deplete Venezuela’s own oil reserves.
The oil is almost certainly coming from both its onshore storage and some of the seized tankers that were transporting oil: The country has about 48 million barrels of storage capacity and was nearly full, according to Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group. The tankers were transporting about 15 million to 22 million barrels of oil, according to industry estimates.
It’s unclear over what time period Venezuela will hand over the oil to the United States.
The senior administration official said the transfer would happen quickly because Venezuela’s crude is very heavy, which means it can’t be stored for long.
But crude does not go bad if it is not refined in a certain amount of time, said Andrew Lipow, the president of Lipow Oil Associates, in a note. “It has sat underground for hundreds of millions of years. In fact, much of the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been around for decades,” he wrote.
