South Carolina man who wrote ‘catch me if u can’ in blood scheduled for execution

A South Carolina man on death row is scheduled to be executed next month for killing a man 20 years ago, burning his eyes with a cigarette and taunting police by writing “Catch me if you can” on a wall with the victim’s blood.

Stephen Bryant, 44, is set to be executed Nov. 14 after the state Supreme Court issued a death warrant on Friday and denied a request for a delay because Bryant’s attorneys were working through the federal court system and the U.S. government shutdown.

Bryant is scheduled to be executed for one count of murder, but prosecutors said he also fatally shot two men urinating on the side of a road in Sumter County in October 2004.

He will have until October 31 to choose whether he wants to die by lethal injection, firing squad or electric chair. Since the state resumed executions last year after a 13-year involuntary pause because of problems obtaining lethal injection drugs, four inmates have opted for lethal injection and two have been killed by firing squad.

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Bryant admitted to killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen after stopping by his rural Sumter County home and telling him he had car trouble.

After Tietjen was shot several times, candles were lit around his body.

According to authorities, the corner of a pot holder was dipped in Tietjen’s blood, and “4 victims in 2 weeks. Catch me if you can” was written on the wall.

Tietjen’s daughter, Kimberly Dees, called him several times and became concerned when he did not answer. He stated that on his sixth call to his father, a strange voice answered.

He requested the person on the other end of the line to let him talk to his father.

“And he said, ‘You can’t, I killed him.’ And I said, ‘This isn’t funny, who are you?’ I said. ‘I am the bandit,’ he said. And I said, ‘Excuse me, who are you?’ I said. “I’m on the prowl,” Dees told the judge who determined Bryant’s sentence.

Prosecutors said Bryant killed two other people, one before and one after Tietjen’s killing. He forced two men into a car and shot them in the back when they got out of the vehicle to urinate on the side of rural roads.

Stephen Bryant will have until October 31 to choose whether he wants to die by lethal injection, firing squad or electric chair. (AP)

Bryant’s lawyers said he was sexually abused as a child by four male relatives, which haunted him in the months before the murder. His lawyers said he begged his parole officer and his aunt to help him because he couldn’t stop thinking about the abuse.

His aunt, Terry Caulder, said: “He was so upset. He looked like he was being tortured. It was like his soul had been completely opened up. You could see in his eyes that he was in pain and suffering, and he was reliving the abuse as it was coming to light.”

Bryant resorted to using meth and pesticide-sprayed marijuana to relieve pain, his lawyers said.

Six inmates executed in South Carolina since the state resumed executions in September last year claimed before their deaths that the state’s methods amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Three rifle-wielding volunteers in the second firing squad nearly missed Mikal Mehdi’s heart, lawyers for the prisoners said. They said Mahdi suffered excruciating pain for three or four times longer than experts said had the bullets hit him directly in the heart.

Lethal injection procedures have also been criticized by death row inmates. The state currently appears to be using double doses of the sedative pentobarbital; Lawyers said that the prisoners suffocated due to the liquid rushing into their lungs, but they were paralyzed and could not react.

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Stephen Bryant admitted to killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen after stopping by his rural Sumter County home and telling him he had car trouble. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)

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In South Carolina, once one of the states with the highest number of executions, executions paused for 13 years until they resumed in September 2024 due to problems obtaining lethal injection drugs after the supply expired due to concerns that drug companies would have to disclose that they sold the drugs to government officials.

But the state legislature later passed a shield law that allows officials to keep suppliers of lethal injection drugs secret. Firing squad was also added as a method of execution.

Bryant would be the 50th person sentenced to death in South Carolina since the state resumed capital punishment in 1985 and the seventh person executed since the state resumed executions a year ago.

A total of 39 men have been executed across the USA so far this year. At least five more executions are planned for the rest of the year in the United States.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.