A man on South Carolina’s death row who taunted investigators with messages written in his victim’s blood chose to die by firing squad on Friday.
Stephen Bryant, 44, will be the third this year to die in South Carolina under the latest execution method. His execution is scheduled for November 14.
Bryant is on death row for killing a man in his own home. Investigators said he burned Willard “TJ” Tietjen’s eyes with cigarettes after shooting him and painted “catch if you can” on the wall in the victim’s blood.
Prosecutors said he also shot and killed two other men he drove while they were living on the side of the road for weeks in the 2004 Sumter County shooting spree. in October
A court battle is likely to follow controversy over the latest firing squad death
Bryant’s decision to die after being shot by three volunteers from a distance of 15 feet (4.6 meters) means a court battle over the execution is likely to take place in the next two weeks.
Lawyers for the second and last man killed said the shooters narrowly missed Mikal Mahdi’s heart. They said Mahdi was in excruciating pain three to four times longer than experts say if his heart had suffered a direct hit. They released autopsy photos and questioned why only two bullet wounds appeared after three people were shot.
Witnesses reported several moans and groans from Mahdi that did not occur during Brad Sigmon’s first firing squad execution. It also took Mahdi longer, about 80 seconds, to catch his breath.
Prison officials said the execution went as planned and the shooters only needed to hit the heart, not destroy it. They said that when volunteers practice marksmanship, two bullets often hit the same spot on the body.
Experts hired by Mahdi’s lawyers who reviewed the autopsy said the bullet hole in his body was not jagged enough to be made by two bullets.
The firing squad is a new addition to South Carolina’s enforcement methods
South Carolina added a firing squad during a 13-year hiatus on executions, in part because the state was unable to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections.
Since 1977 only three other prisoners have been executed by firing squad in the United States. All were in Utah, most recently Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.
Bryant’s execution will be South Carolina’s eighth since 2024. in September, when the executions were resumed. All others chose execution by lethal injection. The state also has the electric chair.
Investigators say Tietjen terrorized Sumter County in 2004
Bryant confessed to killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen when he stopped by his secluded home in rural Sumter County and said he was having car trouble.
Tietjen was shot several times. Candles were lit around his body. Someone took a pot holder his daughter had made when she was a child, dipped the corner in blood and wrote on the wall, “Victim 4 in 2 weeks. Catch me if you can,” authorities said.
Tietjen’s daughter called him several times, becoming increasingly worried when he didn’t answer. On the sixth call, she testified, a strange voice answered and said he had killed Tietjen.
Bryant also killed two men, one before and one after Tietjen, prosecutors said. He would give men rides, and when they got out to urinate on the edge of lonely, village streets, he would shoot them in the back.
Bryant’s lawyers said he was troubled in the months leading up to the murder, asking a probation agent and aunt for help because he couldn’t stop thinking about being sexually abused by four male relatives as a child.
Bryant tried to deal with the pain by using meth and smoking joints that he sprayed with bug killer, his defense attorneys said.
41 men have been executed by US court this year, and at least 18 more will be executed in the remainder of 2025. period and next year.
Bryant’s death will be the 50th execution in South Carolina since capital punishment was reinstated 40 years ago.