A man from South Carolina, convicted of murdering three individuals over a span of five days more than two decades ago, was executed by firing squad on Friday evening.
Stephen Bryant, aged 44, was executed for taking the life of a man in his residence and inscribing “catch me if u can” on the wall with the victim’s blood. He was declared dead at 6:05 p.m. after the firing squad execution. Three prison staff members, armed with live ammunition, volunteered to perform the execution. Bryant is the third individual this year to be executed using South Carolina’s latest method of execution.
Bryant’s legal team submitted a last-minute appeal, contending that the sentencing judge did not take into account the significant brain damage he incurred as a result of his mother’s substance abuse during pregnancy. In October, the Supreme Court refused to review Bryant’s death sentence.
Bryant was found guilty of the 2004 murder of a man in his home, with investigators stating that he burned Willard “TJ” Tietjen’s eyes with cigarettes after shooting him and writing on the wall with the victim’s blood.
Prosecutors noted that he also shot and killed two other men he had given rides to while they were urinating by the roadside during a few weeks that instilled fear in Sumter County in October 2004.
In March, South Carolina conducted the nation’s first execution by firing squad in 15 years. The state has utilized the firing squad to execute three of five inmates this year.
Bryant is the seventh individual executed by South Carolina in the past 14 months, following a 13-year hiatus in executions due to difficulties in obtaining lethal injection drugs.
South Carolina resorted to the firing squad as it faced challenges in finding alternative execution methods for condemned inmates. By the early 2010s, the state had depleted its supply of lethal injection drugs, and no manufacturers were willing to sell more without anonymity, a stipulation not permitted by law. Judges refused to schedule executions if electrocution was the sole option available. Consequently, executions ceased for 13 years, resulting in a backlog of death row cases.
Since the resumption of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, no South Carolina governor has granted clemency.
Executions on death row in the U.S. are increasing after a gradual rise following the pandemic, when the nation saw the use of the death penalty reach a historic low.
As of 2025, forty-three executions have been conducted, with three scheduled for this week; however, only two occurred: one in Florida and Bryant’s in South Carolina. An execution was planned in Oklahoma on Thursday, but the state’s governor commuted the sentence for the condemned inmate. At least 14 more executions are scheduled for the remainder of 2025 and into the next year.
