Lucy Devine
An inmate on death row has become the second man to be executed by firing squad in 15 years, after he was found guilty of murdering a police officer.
In July 2004, 21-year-old Mikal Mahdi began a killing spree in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, taking the life of 29-year-old convenience store clerk Christopher Jason Boggs in a robbery gone wrong.
Two days later, Mahdi carjacked a man in Columbia, South Carolina, before driving to a farm in Calhoun County. It was there that he met 56-year-old off-duty police officer James Myers.
Mahdi shot Myers as many as eight times, two of which to the head, before dousing his body in diesel and attempting to burn him.
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On Friday (April 11) Mahdi was executed at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. He chose to die by firing squad, and the execution reportedly went ahead without incident.
In South Carolina, inmates can choose between the lethal injection, the electric chair or the firing squad. Mahdi chose the latter, which is pretty rare.
In fact, there's only been five deaths by firing squad in the US since 1976, with the other four being carried out in Utah.
"Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils," attorney David Weiss said in a statement, as per AP.
"Mikal chose the firing squad instead of being burned and mutilated in the electric chair, or suffering a lingering death on the lethal injection gurney."
In a statement prior to his death, Mahdi’s attorney spoke about his client's childhood and the events that led up to his heinous crimes.
“Between the ages of 14 and 21, Mikal spent over 80 percent of his life incarcerated and lived through 8,000 hours in solitary confinement,” he said.
“Now 42, Mikal is deeply remorseful and a dramatically different person from the confused, angry, and abused youth who committed the capital crimes.”
Recently, another inmate in the US was executed via firing squad.
Brad Sigmon was put on death row back in 2001 after being convicted for the double murder of his ex Rebecca Barbre's parents in South Carolina.
According to CBS, Sigmon, 67, beat her parents to death with a baseball bat while at their home in Greenville County. He then kidnapped Rebecca at gunpoint, according to prosecutors, but she escaped from his car as he attempted to shoot her, but missed.
Sigmon received a 30-year jail term for first-degree burglary, as well as two death sentences.
He was executed on March 7 this year.