South Carolina Sets Execution for Killer Who Taunted Police with Victim's Blood Message

Stephen (also reported as Steven) Bryant, 44, who pleaded guilty to a nine-day 2004 crime spree that left three men dead, has been scheduled for execution in South Carolina on Nov. 14 after the state Supreme Court issued a death warrant. Authorities say Bryant ambushed Willard "TJ" Tietjen after feigning car trouble, shot him multiple times, burned his eyes with cigarettes, lit candles around the body and dipped a potholder in the victim’s blood to scrawl “victim 4 in 2 weeks. catch me if u can,” even answering a call from Tietjen’s daughter and identifying himself as “the prowler.” Prosecutors say Bryant also shot and killed two other men he had offered rides to while they urinated; he was sentenced to death for Tietjen’s murder and received life terms for the other slayings after pleading guilty in 2008. The South Carolina Supreme Court denied Bryant’s lawyers’ request to delay the execution amid a U.S. government shutdown that they said disrupted their access to federal courts. Bryant has until Oct. 31 to choose lethal injection, the firing squad or the electric chair, and his scheduled death would be among several executions carried out in South Carolina since the state resumed capital punishment last year and part of a broader uptick in U.S. executions this year.