South Carolina triple murderer set to be third man to die by firing squad in state this year

A man in South Carolina who killed three people more than 20 years ago is scheduled to become the third person in the state to be executed by firing squad this year. 

Stephen Bryant, 44, is expected to die at 6 p.m. Friday at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina. 

South Carolina restarted executions in September 2024 after a 13-year pause partly related to the state struggling to keep an adequate supply of lethal injection drugs and concerns over botched lethal injection executions. 

Four men have been killed by lethal injection in the state since September 2024. The electric chair is also legal there.

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Stephen Bryant, 44, is expected to die at 6 p.m. Friday at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP, File; AP)

Three prison employees have volunteered to carry out Bryant’s execution from 15 feet away. 

He has no pending appeals but is allowed to ask the governor for clemency. A South Carolina governor has not given clemency, which wouldn’t come in until minutes before the execution, since the United States resumed the death penalty in 1976. 

Bryant chose to die by firing squad over lethal injection and the electric chair last month.

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Bryant admitted to fatally shooting Willard “TJ” Tietjen in his home, burning his eyes with cigarettes and painting “catch me if u can” on the wall with Tietjen’s blood.

South Carolina’s electric chair sits in the death chamber at Broad River Correctional Facility. The viewing room to the right is where media, lawyers and family witnesses sit.  (Eric Seals/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Candles were lit around Tietjen’s body, and the corner of a potholder was dipped in Tietjen’s blood and used to write “victem 4 in 2 weeks. catch me if u can” on a wall, according to officials.

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Tietjen’s daughter called him six times, telling investigators on the final call that a strange voice answered and told her of killing Tietjen.

Prosecutors alleged Bryant also shot and killed two other men in the back after offering them rides in October 2004, one prior to Tietjen’s death and one after.

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Mikal Mahdi, 41, was executed in April at a prison in Columbia.  (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)

Bryant’s lawyers said he was distressed before the killings, repeatedly asking for help as he struggled with trauma from being sexually abused by four male relatives as a child, according to the report. He allegedly tried to cope through drug use, including meth and bug spray-laced joints.

Attorneys for Mikal Mahdi, the last man put to death by firing squad earlier year, are suing the state, claiming that the bullets missed his heart and he was likely alive and suffering for up to a minute afterward.

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Mahdi, 42, was convicted in the 2004 killings of an off-duty police officer in Calhoun County, South Carolina, and a convenience store clerk in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was sentenced to death for the murder of the officer and life in prison for the clerk’s murder. 

Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Alexandra Koch and The Associated Press contributed to this report.