Evil triple murderer is executed by firing squad after last-ditch appeal was rejected

Daily Mail UK ^ | November 14, 2025 | Will Potter

[Morgana]

A South Carolina mass killer was executed by firing squad on Friday after his last-ditch attempt to avoid the death penalty was rejected.

Stephen Bryant, 44, was shot by three volunteers with rifles shortly after 6pm, more than 20 years after he killed three people during a vicious crime spree.

Residents in Sumter County were left terrified by his eight day rampage, which saw him taunt police by writing a message in his victim's blood.

Days before his execution, Bryant petitioned the South Carolina Supreme Court to stay his death penalty as he sought to blame his sickening crimes on brain damage caused by his mother drinking and doing drugs while pregnant with him.

But his fate was sealed as the court ruled that even if Bryant was found to suffer Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, it would not change his death sentence.

He became the third person in South Carolina to die by firing squad this year, a method that he chose due to issues obtaining lethal injection drugs. He also had the option to die by the electric chair.

Bryant chose the firing squad, which saw three volunteers shoot him in the heart from a distance of around 15 feet.

The firing squad method sparked controversy earlier this year after witnesses to the execution of killer Mikal Mahdi, 42, said he suffered excruciating pain when the shooters missed his heart.

Bryant had languished on death row since 2008, when he pleaded guilty to shooting four men, three fatally, in an eight-day crime spree in 2004.

Although Bryant admitted to killing three men, his death sentence was the result of just one carried out during the spree, the murder of Willard 'TJ' Tietjen, 62, who Bryant ambushed and killed in his remote home in Sumter County.

[MissEdie]

That is probably where it came from!!!

[Equine1952]

Very true. Regards