A South Carolina death row inmate who killed three people two decades ago is set to be executed next month.
The Supreme Court of South Carolina issued a death warrant for Stephen Corey Bryant, 44, on October 17, according to an execution notice acquired by PEOPLE. The Court denied Bryant’s attorneys’ plea for a postponement due to the U.S. government shutdown.
Bryant, who is due to be executed on November 14, will become the fifth person executed in South Carolina this year, according to the South Carolina Daily Gazette. According to the site, he can choose between fatal injection, firing squad, or electrocution.
Bryant was found guilty of fatally shooting three individuals during a week-long burglary and murder spree in rural Sumter County in the fall of 2004. Bryant was 23 years old at the time, according to the Daily Gazette, and he murdered his 36-year-old coworker, Clifton Gainey, on October 9, that year, before burglarizing his home.
According to the publication, two days later, he killed 62-year-old Willard Tietjen at home. Tietjen was tragically shot and had his face and eyes burned with cigarettes, according to WISTV.
According to the Post and Courier, Bryant left notes scribbled in blood on the wall of Tietjen’s home, one of which read: “victim number four in two weeks, catch me if you can,” He also mocked the victim’s wife and children when he answered Tietjen’s phone, claiming the guy was “dead.”
Two days later, he killed Chris Burgess, 35, after meeting him at a convenience store, according to the Daily Gazette.
Bryant pleaded guilty to the charges in 2008.
According to the Post and Courier, his lawyers claimed that he sought mental health counseling before to the murders because he was reliving sexual trauma he said occurred when he was a child. Bryant was initially committed at the age of 11, and he often misused methamphetamine, Benadryl, and marijuana treated with RAID insecticide, according to the site.
In a 2011 dismissal of the defense’s appeal, the South Carolina Supreme Court stated that Bryant was “unquestionably a deeply troubled individual.”
