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A South Carolina firing squad tried to shoot a convicted cop killer in the heart and missed in a “botched” execution that left him in “excruciating” pain as he bled out, according to an autopsy and experts. Mikal Mahdi, 42 — who murdered a South Carolina police officer during a crime spree in 2004 — was shot to death by a three-person firing squad on April 11. But an autopsy later revealed that none of the bullets hit his heart directly, and that his chest showed only two bullet wounds instead of three, according to a disturbing report by NPR....

Iran executed an ex-contract employee on charges of spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Reuters reported Saturday. Jalal Hajizavar left his post at the aerospace organization of the Iranian defense ministry nine years ago. He was convicted by a military court after an investigation which discovered documents and spying equipment at his home, according to Reuters, which cited an IRIB news agency report. Hajizavar was reportedly executed at the Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, west of Tehran.

China has provoked international outrage after executing four Canadian nationals it accused of drug-related offences. Canada's foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly said she and former prime minister Justin Trudeau had asked for clemency for the dual citizens after they were implicated in the alleged crimes. But Beijing's embassy in Ottawa said the executions were due to drug crimes and noted that China does not recognise dual citizenship. Amnesty International condemned the executions as inhumane and noted that China executed thousands of people in 2023, according to its most recent figures. 'These shocking and inhumane executions of Canadian citizens by Chinese...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — I've now watched through glass and bars as 11 men were put to death at a South Carolina prison. None of the previous 10 prepared me for watching the firing squad death of Brad Sigmon on Friday night. I might now be unique among U.S. reporters: I've witnessed three different methods — nine lethal injections and an electric chair execution. I can still hear the thunk of the breaker falling 21 years later...... I also pored over the transcript of his trial, including how prosecutors said it took less than two minutes for Sigmon to strike...

Condemned South Carolina inmate Brad Sigmon has chosen to die next month by a firing squad, a method of execution that has not been used in the US in 15 years. Sigmon is scheduled to die on March 7. On Friday, he became the first South Carolina inmate to choose the state’s new firing squad over lethal injection or the electric chair. Only three inmates in the country have been executed by firing squad since 1976. All were in Utah, with the last one taking place in 2010. Sigmon, 67, will be strapped to a chair and have a hood...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed a sweeping execution order Monday on the death penalty that directs the attorney general to “take all necessary and lawful action” to ensure that states have enough lethal injection drugs to carry out executions. Trump’s order, coming just hours after he returned to the White House, compels the Justice Department to not only seek the death penalty in appropriate federal cases but also to help preserve capital punishment in states that have struggled to maintain adequate supplies of lethal injection drugs.

A murderer who ruthlessly gunned down two innocent female bank workers has now demanded to be let out of prison - just days after President Biden saved him from death row. Brandon Council, 38, who was sentenced to death for the cold-blooded murders of bank employees Donna Major and Katie Skeen, filed the bold request for 'compassionate release' on Friday. Council murdered the two women during a horrific bank raid in Conway, South Carolina, in 2017. After a three-week trial, he was convicted in September 2019, with judges handing down the death sentence the following month. But in a controversial...

Luigi Mangione is now in New York to face charges over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on December 4. Mangione has been formally charged in the murder, where he reportedly shot and killed Thompson in the early morning hours outside of the New York Hilton Midtown before an investor’s meeting. Thompson was shot multiple times with a suppressed, mostly 3D-printed firearm. He’s facing over a dozen state and federal charges regarding this crime. The latest federal charges make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted

President William McKinley believed in luck. He specifically believed in the luck brought by red carnations, which is why he wore one to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901. When a little girl asked him for the flower, the president gave it to her. Then, Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley in the abdomen

Alabama used nitrogen gas Thursday to execute a man convicted of killing three people in back-to-back workplace shootings, the second time the method ... has been used in the country. ... Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. local time at a south Alabama prison. Miller was convicted of killing three men — Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy and Terry Jarvis — in 1999 and the state had previously attempted to execute him by lethal injection in 2022. ...

The state of Missouri has executed Marcellus Williams despite concerns that the convicted murderer might have been innocent. Williams died by lethal injection shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday at Missouri state prison in Bonne Terre. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle, a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter who was fatally stabbed during a daytime burglary. Republican Missouri Governor Mike Parson, Missouri's Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court all rejected last-minute attempts to halt the execution, ignoring clemency pleas from Williams' lawyers, prosecutors and members of the...

A Florida man convicted of killing a college freshman and raping the murder victim’s older sister while the siblings camped in a national forest 30 years ago was executed Thursday. Loran Cole, 57, received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. at Florida State Prison for the 1994 killing of the 18-year-old student. Cole also was serving two life sentences for rape. ...

On this date in 1891, Chinese authorities beheaded 15 at Kowloon, including the leaders of the then-notorious Namoa pirates. They were nicknamed for the steamer they had infamously commandeered six months before. The tale is related by an English maritime official’s orientalist (and now public-domain) memoir, The Mystic Flowery Land: The most daring and disastrously successful piracy of late years … was the “Namoa” piracy in 1890. The startling news of this outrage created a general feeling of unsafety and consternation among the foreign communities in China, mingled with grief and just resentment for the cold-blooded murder of Captain Pocock...

Protester who threatened city council weeps at arraignment

State personnel failed to establish an IV line to serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech The state of Idaho was unable to execute Thomas Eugene Creech on Thursday, one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the U.S. Medical personnel administering the lethal injection failed to establish an IV line despite trying for roughly an hour. The U.S. Supreme Court had denied all motions to block the process on Wednesday morning, allowing the execution to move forward. The death warrant is now being allowed to expire and will need to be renewed for a later attempt. Prior to the failed execution,...

For nearly 50 years, Idaho's prison staffers have been serving Thomas Eugene Creech three meals a day, checking on him during rounds and taking him to medical appointments. This Wednesday, some of Idaho's prison staffers will be asked to kill the convicted serial killer. Barring any last-minute stay, the 73-year-old, one of the nation's longest-serving death row inmates, will be executed by lethal injection for killing a fellow prisoner with a battery-filled sock in 1981. Creech's killing of David Jensen, a young, disabled man who was serving time for car theft, was his last in a broad path of destruction...

Idaho is moving forward with legislation that would allow the execution of child rapists. The Idaho Capital Sun reports that the legislation, introduced by Republican lawmakers, will target those who have committed the most serious offenses against children as well as repeat offenders. The bill passed the Idaho House by a 57-11 vote. The legislation states: This legislation amends Idaho Codes 18-1508 and 19-2515 to allow a sentence of capital punishment for a person convicted of lewd conduct with a minor, if said minor is under the age of twelve (12) and there are aggravating circumstances. Upon conviction, a jury...

The White House said Friday it was “deeply troubled” after Alabama executed a man using nitrogen gas in a first-of-its-kind capital punishment. “The reports of Kenneth Smith and his death last night obviously is very troubling. It is very troubling to us as an administration, it is very troubling to us here at the White House,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “The president has long said and has had deep deep concerns with how the death penalty is implemented and whether it is consistent … with our values,” she added. Smith was put to death Thursday in Alabama night...

Kenneth Eugene Smith has become the first person in history to be executed with nitrogen gas. The convicted killer, 58, was put to death in the William C. Holman facility's execution chamber in Atmore, Alabama. After the reading of his last rights, a tight gas mask was placed over Smith's nose and mouth, before a stream of 100 percent nitrogen gas suffocated him. The gas mask remained on his face for 15 minutes to ensure the murderer was dead. Witnesses were led into the viewing room at 6:55pm, and Smith was pronounced dead half an hour later. Despite fears over...

Kenneth Eugene Smith has become the first person in history to be executed with nitrogen gas. The convicted killer, 58, had a tight gas mask placed over his nose and mouth before a stream of 100 percent nitrogen gas suffocated him inside the execution chamber at the William C. Holman prison in Atmore, Alabama. Smith was officially pronounced dead at 8:25 local time, following a 22-minute ordeal where he appeared to remain conscious for several minutes. He shook violently and pulled on the restraints on the gurney, continuing to breathe the nitrogen gas heavily until he succumbed and passed out....