COLUMBIA — Cole Smith saw a gunshot wound appear on Brad Sigmon’s chest before hearing the shots that ended the death-row inmate’s life.

“It was so strange,” said Smith, Sigmon’s spiritual advisor, who had a front-row seat to the state-sanctioned execution in March.

Although what he saw can be explained by the differing speeds at which light and sound travel, Smith described it as an unexpected occurrence in what was already a surreal experience: Witnessing a firing squad shoot Sigmon to death , the execution method’s first use in the U.S. since 2010.

After lying unused for over a decade, South Carolina’s death chamber has seen heightened activity since it reopened a year ago, on Sept. 20. Four prisoners have been executed by lethal injection and another two by firing squad, within

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