South Carolina’s Supreme Court on Friday issued a death warrant for Stephen Bryant, 44, who wrote “catch me if u can” in his victim’s blood after a 2004 murder.
Set for execution Nov. 14, he becomes the state’s seventh inmate scheduled for death since capital punishment resumed last year. The court denied his lawyers’ request for a delay tied to the federal shutdown.
Bryant confessed to shooting Willard Tietjen multiple times after stopping at his rural Sumter County home, claiming car trouble. He lit candles around the body and used a blood-soaked potholder to write “victim 4 in 2 weeks. catch me if u can” [sic] on a wall.
When Tietjen’s daughter called her father’s phone, Bryant answered.
“And he said, ‘You can’t, I killed him.’ And I said, ‘This isn’t funny, who are you?’ He said, ‘I’m the prowler,’” Kimberly Dees testified.
Prosecutors said Bryant also murdered two men in October 2004, shooting them during roadside stops.
Bryant must choose his execution method—lethal injection, firing squad, or electric chair—by Oct. 31. Since South Carolina ended its 13-year execution pause in 2024, four inmates have chosen lethal injection and two the firing squad.
The state halted executions in 2011 after its drug supply expired, later passing a shield law to protect suppliers and adding the firing squad option. Bryant becomes the 50th person executed in South Carolina since the death penalty resumed in 1985.
