Columbia, South Carolina — COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina prisoner who killed a man, burned out his eyes with cigarettes and then painted the words “Catch me if you can” on a wall with the victim’s blood more than 20 years ago is scheduled to be executed next month.
The state Supreme Court on Friday issued the death warrant for Steven Bryant, 44. The court denied a request from Bryant’s lawyers, who requested a postponement because they work with the federal court system and The US government has been shut down.
While Bryant will be executed on November 14 for one murder, Prosecutors said He also shot and killed two other men while they were enjoying themselves on the side of the road during the few weeks that terrorized Sumter County in October 2004.
Bryant will be the 50th person to be executed In South Carolina Since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1985, the seventh prisoner has been executed in less than 14 months since the state was able to obtain a drug for lethal injection and reopen the execution chamber after… Unintentional hiatus of 13 years.
Bryant will have until October 31 to decide whether he wants to die or not Lethal injection, firing squad Or in the electric chair. Since the long remand, four inmates have opted for lethal injection and two have died by shooting.
A total of 38 men have been executed so far this year in the United States, and one prisoner is scheduled to die on Friday by lethal injection. In Arizona. At least five more executions will take place in the United States during the remainder of 2025.
Bryant admitted to killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen after he stopped at his isolated home in rural Sumter County and said he had car trouble.
Tietjen was shot multiple times. Candles were lit around his body. Someone took a bowl his daughter had made when she was a child, dipped the corner in blood and wrote “Fourth victim in two weeks. Catch me if you can” on the wall, authorities said.
Tietjen’s daughter called him several times, and became increasingly concerned when he did not answer. On the sixth call, she testified, she answered with a strange voice.
The person on the other end told her she had the right number. Then she asked to speak to her father.
“He said, ‘You can’t do that. You killed him.'” I said, “This isn’t funny. Who are you?” He said: I am the intruder. I said: Excuse me, who are you? He said, ‘I’m a troll,'” Kimberly Deese testified before the judge who determined Bryant’s sentence.
Bryant also killed two men — one before Tietjen and one after, prosecutors said. He would give the men rides and when they went out to urinate on the side of isolated country roads, he shot them in the back.
As deputies frantically searched for the killer, many of Sumter County’s 100,000 residents lived in fear of random attacks. Officers stopped almost everyone driving on the dirt roads and told people to be wary of anyone they don’t know asking for help.
Bryant’s lawyers said he was upset in the months leading up to the killing, pleading with a probation agent and his aunt to help him because he couldn’t stop thinking about being sexually abused by four male relatives when he was a child.
“He was very upset. He looked like he was being tortured. It was as if his soul was wide open. Aunt Terry Caulder saw in his eyes that he was hurting and suffering and was reliving the abuse when he was coming out.”
Bryant’s lawyers said Bryant tried to help himself through the pain by using methamphetamine and smoking joints that he sprayed with bug killer.
The six inmates executed in South Carolina since September 2024 have argued that State methods These are cruel and unusual punishments, but they could not stop their deaths.
With the firing squad, the prisoners’ lawyers say the three volunteers carrying rifles nearly missed the heart of the second man who was killed. Mikal Mahdi. They suggested that the Mahdi exists Excruciating pain Three or four times longer than experts say if his heart was directly injured.
Convicted prisoners also examined lethal injection procedures, which appear to be in use now Two doses of the powerful sedative pentobarbital. They said that the prisoners drown because of the fluid rushing into their lungs, but they become paralyzed and cannot respond.
Witnesses to the four executions saw no signs of struggle, and reported that the prisoners appeared to lose consciousness within about one minute.