Firing squad ‘botched' death row execution as inmate suffers ‘excruciating' death bleeding out strapped to chair

Scottish Sun

09-05-2025

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A SOUTH Carolina firing squad has been accused by experts of botching the execution of a convicted cop killer, leaving him in "excruciating" pain as he bled to death.
None of the bullets directly hit Mikal Mahdi's heart, as is supposed to happen during an execution, an autopsy commissioned by the state has revealed.
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Mikal Mahdi, 42, was shot dead on April 11
Credit: AP
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The 42-year-old was strapped to a metal chair beneath a hood and with a red bullseye target placed over his heart
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He shot Captain James Edward Myers nine times in 2004 and then set his dead body on fire
Credit: LIVE5
Mikal Mahdi, 42, was shot dead on April 11, marking South Carolina's second execution in just over a month.
An autopsy of Mahdi's chest showed only two bullet wounds instead of three from the trio of prison employees who volunteered for the squad, according to the NPR's report.
It has been revealed that the bullets injured his liver and other internal organs but missed his heart, which continued to beat and as a result, left him alive for roughly a minute, experts said.
The autopsy was filed on Thursday by Mahdi's lawyers with a letter to the state Supreme Court titled "notice of botched execution".
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'Mr. Mahdi did experience excruciating conscious pain and suffering for about 30 to 60 seconds after he was shot,' pathologist Dr. Jonathan Arden wrote in his analysis of the autopsy.
Arden, hired by Mahdi's legal team to review the autopsy, added that Mahdi was 'alive and reacting longer than was intended or expected'.
Dr. Carl Wigren, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the autopsy documents for NPR, said: 'He's not going to die instantaneously from this."
He added: 'I think that it took him some time to bleed out.'
Mahdi was sentenced to death for the 2004 murder of off-duty public safety officer Captain James Myers, who was shot nine times and set on fire in a shed where he had married his wife just 15 months earlier.
He was also convicted of murdering two other people, as well as of carjacking and firearm robbery.
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The killer chose to be executed by firing squad over lethal injection or the electric chair, as he feared being 'burned and mutilated' or 'suffering a lingering death', his attorney said.
Strapped to a metal chair beneath a hood and with a red bullseye target placed over his heart, Mahdi gave no final words and refused to look at the nine witnesses behind the bulletproof glass.
He cried out and flexed his arms as three prison staff fired rounds into his chest, then groaned twice more before taking a final breath 80 seconds later.
A doctor pronounced him dead four minutes after the shots were fired.
Though South Carolina's constitution bans cruel or unusual punishment, the state Supreme Court ruled last year that firing squads aren't cruel - claiming death occurs within 15 seconds.
The justices wrote: 'The evidence before us convinces us - though an inmate executed via the firing squad is likely to feel pain, perhaps excruciating pain - that the pain will last only ten to fifteen seconds.
'Unless there is a massive botch of the execution in which each member of the firing squad simply misses the inmate's heart.'
A doctor noted in the state autopsy's comments section that 'it is believed' two bullets passed through a single wound.
But pathologists reviewing the case expressed doubt, with Wigren stating, 'I think the odds of that are pretty minuscule.'
A doctor noted in the comments section on the state autopsy that 'it is believed that' two bullets went through one wound.
But pathologists who reviewed were skeptical that two bullets went through precisely the same small hole.
'I think the odds of that are pretty minuscule,' Wigren said.
Jeffrey Collins, a reporter for the Associated Press, wrote that he heard Mahdi groan twice about 45 seconds after shots.
He claimed Mahdi continued to breathe for another 80 seconds before he appeared to take a final gasp.
Pathologist Arden concluded in his report: 'Both the forensic medical evidence and the reported eyewitness observations of the execution corroborate that Mr. Mahdi was alive and reacting longer than was intended or expected."
Mahdi's execution was the fifth in the state in less than eight months, and the 12th in the US so far this year.
During his trial, Assistant Solicitor David Pascoe called him 'the epitome of evil' and said: 'His heart and mind are full of hate and malice.'
Myers' wife, Amy Tripp Myers, gave a heartbreaking testimony: 'I found the love of my life, my soulmate, the partner that my life revolved around, lifeless, lying in a pool of blood and his body burned by someone who didn't even know him.'
In a letter written before his death, Mahdi admitted: 'I'm guilty as hell… What I've done is irredeemable.'
Despite a final push by his legal team and childhood teachers calling for clemency, Republican Governor Henry McMaster denied a last-minute appeal.
The US Supreme Court also rejected his final petition.
Mahdi's death followed the execution of 67-year-old Brad Sigmon in March, the first firing squad execution in South Carolina after a 13-year pause.
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South Carolina execution protesters demonstrate outside Mahdi's scheduled execution