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South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on Friday after appeals were denied by the state and U.S. Supreme Courts earlier this week.
Mikal Mahdi, 42, was convicted in the 2004 killings of an off-duty police officer in Calhoun County, South Carolina, and a convenience store clerk in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was sentenced to death for the murder of the officer and life in prison for the clerk’s murder.
Mahdi had the choice of dying by lethal injection, the electric chair, or firing squad—and he chose the latter. The Associated Press reported that he did not give a final statement nor look at the nine people witnessing his execution before a hood was placed over his head and shots were fired by three prison employees who volunteered for the act. He was declared dead less than four minutes later.
Prison officials announced that he requested a last meal of ribeye steak cooked medium, mushroom risotto, broccoli, collard greens, cheesecake, and sweet tea.
Mahdi was sentenced to death in 2006 after he admitted to killing off-duty Orangeburg Department of Public Safety Capt. James Myers, 56, on his property on July 18, 2004. Myers had been shot at least eight times, and his body was burned when his wife found him in their shed, which was near a gas station where Mahdi attempted to purchase gas with a stolen credit card. Mahdi had left a vehicle he carjacked in Columbia at the gas station and was later arrested in Florida while driving Myers’ unmarked police truck.
Mahdi also admitted to murdering convenience store clerk Christopher Boggs three days before he killed Myers. Boggs was shot in the head twice while checking Mahdi’s ID, according to The AP.
Mahdi’s lawyers entered a final appeal to the South Carolina and the U.S. Supreme Courts, but it was rejected earlier this week. They argued that Mahdi was not fairly represented by his original lawyers because they did not call on relatives, teachers, or other people who knew him during the case. They also claimed the lawyers ignored how several months Mahdi spent in solitary confinement as a teen impacted him.
Prosecutors, however, said Mahdi’s nature was "violence" and that he solved problems with brutality. They noted that he stabbed a prison guard and hit another worker with a concrete block during his years on death row. Additionally, prison records stated he was caught with tools that could have been used to escape, including sharpened metal that could have acted as a knife.
The execution on Friday marked the second time a South Carolina inmate has been put to death by firing squad in the past five weeks and the fifth execution overall in the state over the past eight months. Following Mahdi’s death, South Carolina now has 26 inmates on death row, with only one of those sentenced to death in the past decade.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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