Brad Sigmon, 67, personally requested the unusual punishment after fearing the electric chair would “burn and cook him alive,” his attorney Gerald King wrote in a statement.

South Carolina on Friday is scheduled to put the first person to death by firing squad in the U.S. in 15 years. Brad Sigmon, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents in 2001, chose it over the two other methods in South Carolina — the electric chair and lethal injection.