Sick triple-murderer to be executed by firing squad after burning man’s face and eyes
Stephen Bryant, 44, randomly shot a dad and husband nine times, burned his face and eyes with cigarettes and taunted police in a message scrawled in his blood during a killing spree in South Carolina
A sick triple murderer has opted to be executed by firing squad two decades after brutally killing three men. Stephen Bryant, 44, will be killed by three volunteers firing shots at him from 15 feet away on November 15.
The depraved killer, who taunted police with a message written in blood, was on death row for 17 years before choosing the unusual method of execution. In October 2004, Bryant went on an eight-day killing spree in South Carolina.
He shot three people to death and left another maimed in four separate incidents. Clifton Gainey, 36, who was a friend of Bryant, was shot and killed before being abandoned on a road.
Bryant pretended he was having car trouble before randomly murdering his second victim Willard ‘TJ’ Tietjen, 62, in his own secluded home. After the killing, Byrant ransacked his home, used his computer and even answered a call from his wife and daughter, telling them Tietjen was dead.
The victim’s daughter Kimberly Dees told a court Bryant told her, “you can’t, I killed him,” after she asked to speak with her father. When she replied, “This isn’t funny, who are you?” he identified himself as a “prowler”.
Tietjen’s body was found with nine bullet wounds, surrounded by lit candles and beside a message written in blood. His eyes and face had also been burned with cigarettes.
Bryant told police there would be another victim in the message written with a potholder made by Tietjen’s daughter when she was a child.
After meeting Christopher Burgess, 35, in a convivence store, Bryant shot him dead before leaving his lifeless body on a rural road.
He was found guilty of three murders after pleading guilty in 2008. His defense said he had been left traumatised by sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of four male relatives.
His aunt, Terry Caulder, testified: “He was very upset. He looked like he was being tortured. It’s like his soul was just laid wide open.
“In his eyes you could see he was hurting and suffering and he was living the abuse over again as it was coming out.”
Bryant will be the third inmate to die by firing squad in South Carolina this year. The method of execution has been slammed as inhumane by campaigners but it remains authorised in a handful of states.
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