COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP/WCSC) - South Carolina’s highest court refused to stop the execution of a man who killed three people over five days more than 20 years ago while leaving taunting messages for police in the blood of one of his victims.

Stephen Bryant, 44, is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Friday by firing squad at a Columbia prison.

Lawyers for Bryant made a last ditch appeal arguing the judge who sentenced him to die never got to consider how badly his brain was damaged from his mother’s alcohol and drug use while pregnant.

But the South Carolina Supreme Court rejected that appeal late Monday writing that even if Bryant’s defense had done more investigation into whether he had Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, it simply would have given a different reason for his problems while not changi

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