2 weeks Ago
COLUMBIA — Condemned inmate Brad Sigmon is asking the S.C. Supreme Court to stop his March 7 execution , saying no judge or jury has ever learned the full extent of his brain damage, mental illness and childhood trauma that should have made him ineligible for the death penalty.
Sigmon, 67, is asking the Supreme Court to send his case back to the trial court level for further hearings, where he can present evidence that would merit downgrading his penalty to a prison sentence. He was sentenced to death for the murder of his ex-girlfriend’s parents , Gladys and David Larke, at their home in Taylors in April 2001. Sigmon admitted to repeatedly beating the couple with a baseball bat while trying to kidnap their daughter, Rebecca Barbare, who had left him about a week earlier and moved in with her parents next door.
After killing the couple, following a night of drinking and smoking crack cocaine, Sigmon waited for Barbare to return from dropping off her children at school. He forced Barbare into her car and tried to flee with her. She jumped out of the vehicle and managed to escape after he chased and shot her.
In a court petition Feb. 20, Sigmon’s attorneys said the killings — and his erratic behavior at his trial in July 2002 — were due to psychosis from a combination of organic brain damage, trauma from childhood abuse and then-undiagnosed mental illness. But Sigmon’s two trial lawyers did not properly look into these issues, leaving the jury with a picture of him as a “lovesick idiot who snapped,” according to the petition.
It also contends that his trial attorneys, neither of whom had any experience handling death penalty cases, had inadequately represented him. His current defense team is asking the Supreme Court to send his case back to the state circuit court level. “Justice and fairness demand that the Court remand this petition for an evidentiary hearing to be certain that no person in South Carolina is put to death based on deficient legal representation and a woefully incomplete picture of their life and background,” his appellate attorneys said in their 36-page petition.
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