S.C. Man Who Shot Officer and Set Victim's Body on Fire Will Be Executed by Firing Squad

A South Carolina man who fatally shot an off-duty police officer more than 20 years ago is set to be executed by firing squad on Friday, April 11.

Mikal Mahdi, 42, chose to be executed by a firing squad over lethal injection or the electric chair, according to the Associated Press. This will be the second execution the state has carried out by firing squad in the past five weeks.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center — a nonprofit that provides analysis and information on capital punishment — death by firing squad typically involves the prisoner being strapped to a chair with leather restraints across the waist and head, in front of an oval-shaped canvas wall. A black hood is placed over their head, while a doctor locates the heart and affixes a circular white target over it.

Three shooters will stand 20 feet away, aim and shoot at Mahdi until he is declared dead by a doctor. Per the AP, his execution will take place today at 6 p.m.

The only other states to authorize death by a firing squad are Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah. 

Mahdi was convicted of a multi-state crime spree in July 2004 which began in Virginia and ended in Florida, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE. 

On July 14, 2004, Mahdi stole a .380 caliber pistol from his neighbor, a set of Virginia license plates and the neighbor’s station wagon and headed for North Carolina. When he arrived, he entered a gas station and placed a can of beer on the counter — and when the store clerk asked for identification, Mahdi fatally shot him, court documents summarizing the case said. 

He then took the beer and headed towards South Carolina where, at a traffic light, he stole a man’s car and replaced it with the plates he had previously stolen in Virginia. Court documents said he then drove southeast. 

About 35 minutes down the road, Mahdi stopped at a gas station in Columbia, S.C., where a store clerk became suspicious of him. He then fled on foot and ended up at a farm owned by Captain James Myers, a law enforcement officer, according to authorities.

Mahdi waited at Myers’ house until he came home and then shot him nine times with a .22 rifle. He then poured diesel fuel on Myers’ body and set him on fire, per the court documents.

He then fled to Florida where he was spotted by police in Myers’ car and taken into custody. 

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Mahdi’s final appeal was rejected this week by the South Carolina Supreme Court, the AP reported. Mahdi’s lawyers argued that his original attorneys ignored the impact that months spent in prison solitary confinement had on him as a teenager. 

Defense attorneys told the outlet that Mahdi’s earliest memory was of his father slamming his mother through a glass table, then later lying to him and claiming she was dead. His father pulled him out of school in the fifth grade after officials suggested he needed behavioral support.

South Carolina currently has 28 other prisoners on death row. Mahdi will be the second to be executed in the state in the past decade.