At 6:01 p.m. on Friday, Mikal Mahdi was executed inside the Broad River Road Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina, in a string of rifle bullets. The convicted triple murder let out a groaning roar as the guns struck his neck, followed 80 hours later by a deep rumbling moan as the living seemed to keep him. He was declared deceased at 6:05 p.m.
There was some horror in the shouts, according to Jeffrey Collins of the Associated Press. Collins, who has witnessed 12 deaths, said that it was the first moment he had heard an loud manifestation of problems from a condemned man.
Following a murder spree in five state in 2004, Mahdi received a death sentence. In Winston Salem, North Carolina, Mahdi shot and killed Orangeburg Department of Public Safety Capt. Christopher Boggs, a petrol station secretary, before killing and executing him.  , James Myers , at his apartment in , Calhoun County. Mahdi entered a death sentence for Morris ‘ murder in 2006 after entering a guilty plea. He was likewise serving a lifetime prison sentence for the death of Boggs.
Mahdi , chose to die by firing club, making him only the second man in , South Carolina , to choose that method of execution. He was only the second person in the United States to have been executed by a fire club since 1976, the year the U.S. Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty.
Mahdi is the next dying rower to choose a firing squad method of execution in South Carolina. In March,  , Brad Sigmon, who was sentenced to death for the deaths of his ex-girlfriend’s kids, even chose to die by firing squad.
Due to growing concern over South Carolina’s mysterious lethal injection process, one of the other methods of execution along with the electric chair, both people decided to join the fire club. Both defendants ‘ attorneys have reported that two prisoners who were executed under the state’s morphine protocol had fluid in their lungs after examinations. This is proof of a respiratory inflammation, which lawyers say may cause excruciating problems similar to drowning.
On Wednesday night, Mahdi received his final supper, which included a medium-rare ribeye steak, broccoli, cabbage greens, cheesecake, and sweet tea.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday evening declined to hear Mahdi’s charm, and governor at 6 p.m. was around to respond.  , Henry McMaster , declined to challenge a reprimand.
Two different members of the internet were present, along with WACH-Fox in Columbia, besides Collins: Martha Rose Brown from the Orangeburg Times and Brian McConchie from the Democrat and Republicans. Also present were a member of Myers ‘ family, an unidentified member of the Myers ‘ family, and a representative of the First Circuit Solicitors Office, David Weiss, Mahdi’s attorney.
The screen separating the death chamber from the testimony room rose quickly before , 6 p. m., according to the internet testimony. Mahdi was seated in a metal chair with a leather strap encasing his head while wearing a black outfit with a white target on his chest. Witnesses claim that he did not acknowledge anyone in the witness room, instead staring straight ahead. He gave no final statement before a hood was placed over his head.
According to witnesses, shots were fired from the gun ports in the walls at 6:01 p.m. without any prior warning, according to witnesses. According to witnesses, Mahdi reportedly made a noise as the three .308 rounds struck him in the chest, somewhere between a yell and a groan. The white paper target appeared to be sticking out of the wound in his chest, said Collins. He moaned twice more before giving a final deep gasp over the course of the next 80 seconds before taking a few quick breaths. A doctor later pronounced Mahdi dead at 6:05 p.m. after performing an stethoscope examination.
Mahdi is the , fifth person to be executed in , South Carolina , since the state resumed executions in , September 2024.
Mahdi spent most of his time locked up in either juvenile detention or prison, between the ages of 14 and 21. He spent ten months in solitary confinement during that time.
The deadly crime spree began only months after Mahdi was released from prison. Mahdi left his home in , Virginia just days before killing Myers. Over a can of beer, Mahdi shot and killed Boggs, a gas station clerk, while driving through , North Carolina. He then carjacked a vehicle in , Columbia, South Carolina, before fleeing to , Calhoun County.
As the officer returned from celebrating his daughter’s birthday at the beach, Mahdi ambushed Myers, 56. Mahdi, age 21, was hid in a shed on Myers ‘ property in Calhoun County at the time.
First Circuit Solicitor , David Pascoe, who tried Mahdi, described him as “evil”, with” no regard for human life”, while Mahdi’s defense attorneys argued he was psychologically damaged by an abusive childhood compounded by long periods of isolation.
Myers, a 30-year veteran firefighter and law enforcement officer, was repeatedly shot by Mahdi with a rifle before igniting his body and fleeing with the police officer’s weapons. His wife found Myers’s body the following day.
When Mahdi was caught following a manhunt in , Satellite Beach, Florida, he told arresting officers that the only reason he hadn’t shot them was he believed that he wouldn’t be able to kill them all.
Mahdi was subsequently raped in prison. A death row guard was stabbed with improvised metal knives by Mahdi and another prisoner in 2009 with one of their own. The guard survived the stabbing, which took place inside of the , Lieber Correctional Institution , in , Ridgeville.
In an opinion supporting Mahdi’s sentence in a previous appeal, state Supreme Court Justice Jean Toal wrote,” In my time on this Court, I have seen few cases where the extraordinary penalty of death was so deserved.”
According to attorneys, a sentencing judge has never heard of childhood trauma.
But before his senseless murders, Mahdi lived a life defined by instability, violence and institutionalization.
According to court documents, for the majority of his childhood, he was under the control of his father, Shareef Mahdi, a violent schizophrenic who hated white people and forced his sons to live in the woods with him. He also conducted survivalist drills to prepare them for a upcoming” New World Order.”
Mahdi wanted to commit suicide at a young age. Sent to a psychiatric facility at the age of 9, Mahdi said he wanted to shoot himself with a gun or a bow and arrow, according to legal filings.
His third-grade teacher affidavited that Mahdi was a “withdrawn” child who gradually flourished when he was away from his family. He began to express an interest in poetry and art, the teacher said.
But as he grew older, Mahdi fell into first the juvenile and then the adult justice systems. He committed disciplinary infractions, which his attorneys claimed were frequently considered typical teenage rebellion, such as refusing to tuck in his shirt, exercise, or stand up when guards conducted morning counts. However, this resulted in him receiving months of solitary confinement.
During a period after Mahdi was released at the age of 16, his father refused to take him to court hearings leading to a standoff with police.
His attorneys claimed in last-minute appeals that recent studies on the effects of isolation on brain development showed that Mahdi experienced severe trauma from these protracted years of isolation.
In 2016, President Obama signed an executive order outlawing the use of solitary confinement for juveniles in the federal prison system, citing the possibility of “devastating, lasting psychological consequences.”
But this evidence was never presented to , Judge Newman. Mahdi’s attorneys claim that his original legal team staged a defense that lasted only for 30 minutes.
At his trial, attorney , David Weiss, a federal public defender who represented Mahdi, said,” Things just went sideways in a really bad way.”
In filings, Weiss and Mahdi’s other attorneys argued that his original trial lawyers were poorly equipped to handle a death penalty trial. Mahdi admitted guilt after being discovered with a homemade handcuff key. Newman, who oversaw the murder trial of former Hampton County, Virginia, attorney Alex Murdaugh, who was found guilty of killing his wife and son, was convicted without a jury in front of him during his sentencing trial.
Defending a death penalty case is unique, Weiss said, because the questions are often not whether the person killed someone, but whether death is right punishment.
Weiss remarked that “it requires a little more of a human understanding and understanding how a person’s experiences shape who they are.” This includes a specialized understanding of family dynamics, including family history and the effects of systems, such as prisons and mental health facilities, on an individual.
In the early 2000s, many of the attorneys appointed to represent indigent defendants in death penalty trials lacked this specialized knowledge, Weiss said. Two years after Mahdi’s trial, South Carolina’s Commission on Indigent Defense, and the General Assembly, passed reforms to the public defender system, created the Capital Trial Division to represent cases involving the death penalty.
Only four people have been placed on death row since then, according to the South Carolina Association of Defense Lawyers, the  .
While the state unofficially suspended executions in 2013 when it ran of the drugs needed for lethal injections, the defense association argued in a legal filing supporting Mahdi’s appeal that had the Capital Trial Division existed in 2006,” there is every reason to believe , Mr. Mahdi , would have benefited from a comprehensive mitigation investigation, resulting in a robust presentation of mitigating evidence”.
” Folks who are put on capital trials have experienced extraordinary trauma in their lives, and the trauma they have experienced tragically is poured out onto others, which causes enormous pain on victims and their families,” according to the statement. Our goal is to explain that to everyone, Weiss said. ” Our clients can and should be punished very, very harshly, but their lives don’t need to be taken”.
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The State in 2025.
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