A convicted cop killer who turned the second demise row inmate in South Carolina to die by firing squad chomped on a ribeye steak, mushroom risotto, broccoli, collard greens and cheesecake earlier than he was executed on Friday night time.
Mikal Mahdi, 42, had three slugs fired into his coronary heart by educated correctional volunteers at Broad River Correctional Establishment in Columbia and was pronounced useless at 6:05 p.m. for the ambush killing of Orangeburg Public Security Captain James Myers in 2004.
Mahdi, who washed down his hearty final meal with a candy tea, didn’t make a ultimate assertion earlier than his execution, in accordance with the South Carolina Division of Corrections.
Mahdi was then hooded and strapped to a metallic chair that sat on prime of a catch basin contained in the jail’s demise chamber with a white goal and pink bullseye positioned over his chest.
Three members from the state’s corrections division stood behind a wall 15 toes away and concurrently opened fireplace by means of openings within the partition at 6:01 p.m. Every shooter fired one spherical, with Mahdi flexing his arms and crying out because the bullets struck him.
The bullseye was additionally pushed into the wound in his chest.
Mahdi continued to groan and take deep breaths for about two minutes earlier than taking one ultimate gasp – with a health care provider affirming his demise 4 minutes after the photographs rang out.
9 witnesses had been seated in a room separated from the chamber by bulletproof glass.
One member of the sufferer’s household, Mahdi’s legal professional, a consultant from the First Circuit Solicitor’s Workplace and the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Workplace and three reporters had been amongst those that witnessed Mahdi’s ultimate moments.
Mahdi, who personally selected the violent punishment over the electrical chair or deadly injection, turned the second demise row inmate executed by the Palmetto State’s new firing squad after double assassin Brad Sigmon turned the primary individual in 15 years be shot to demise final month.
“Confronted with barbaric and inhumane decisions, Mikal Mahdi had chosen the lesser of the three evils,” his legal professional, David Weiss mentioned in an announcement after the execution, which he described as a “horrifying act” that doesn’t belong in a “civilized society.”
“Mikal selected the firing squad as a substitute of being burned and mutilated within the electrical chair, or struggling the lingering demise on the deadly injection gurney.”
Mahdi was sentenced to demise after he confessed to taking pictures Myers a minimum of eight instances after which burning his physique in a shed that had been the backdrop of the officer’s wedding ceremony simply 15 months earlier.
The heinous act unfolded three days after he killed Christopher Boggs, a comfort retailer clerk in North Carolina. Mahdi shot the clerk twice within the head.
He was later arrested in Florida whereas driving the cop’s unmarked police pickup truck.
Final-minute appeals to spare Mahdi’s life had been rejected this week by each the US and South Carolina Supreme Courts. His protection workforce argued that his unique attorneys made little effort to avoid wasting his life and didn’t name on those that knew him to testify after the prosecution referred to as 28 witnesses.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster additionally denied clemency.
5 inmates have been put to demise within the state since September – when executions resumed following a 13-year pause.
Twenty-six inmates stay on demise row.
With Submit wires
