The execution may not have gone as planned, according to the autopsy findings of a death row prisoner who opted to die by firing squad.
Mikal Mahdi was given a death sentence for his July 2004 killing spree in Windston-Salem, North Carolina, where he shot and killed a 56-year-old off-duty police officer named James Myers two.
Days later in South Carolina and a 29-year-old convenience store clerk named Christopher Jason Boggs. Before trying to burn Myers’ corpse, the then-21-year-old shot him up to eight times.
Mahdi, 42, was put to death by firing squad on April 11 for the atrocities he had committed in the Broad River Correctional Institution twenty years before.
Mahdi chose to be killed by state marksmen, according to his legal team, since they thought it would be the least painful and fastest option rather than via fatal injection or electrocution.
Nevertheless, an independent autopsy has recently shown that the three gunshots most likely struck Mahdi above the belly, penetrating his liver and pancreas, but missing his heart.
The findings revealed that even though three shooters were assigned to carry out the killing, Mahdi sustained two bullet wounds on his torso.
