A convicted double murderer has been executed by firing squad in the first use of the method in the US for 15 years.

Brad Sigmon, 67, chose to be killed by bullets, saying he feared the alternatives of the electric chair and lethal injection would risk a slower and more painful death.

He was convicted of beating his ex-girlfriend’s parents, William and Gladys Larke, to death with a baseball bat at their home in the town of Taylors, South Carolina, in 2001.

He told police he planned to take his ex-girlfriend on a romantic weekend before killing himself and her, and was sentenced to death in 2002.

After being shot by three volunteer prison employees armed with rifles that were loaded with live ammunition, Sigmon was pronounced dead at 6.08pm (11.08pm in the UK) on Friday.

He wore a black jumpsuit with a hood over his head during the execution, and had a white target with a red bullseye over his chest.

Sigmon delivered a closing statement, which he said was “one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty”.

Witnesses – who observed the execution from a chamber separated by bullet-resistant glass – included three members of the victims’ family, Sigmon’s attorney and spiritual advisor, a representative from the prosecuting solicitor’s office, a sheriff’s investigator and three members of the press.

On Wednesday, prior to his death, he asked the US Supreme Court to stop his execution, arguing South Carolina’s refusal to share information about its lethal injection protocol violated his rights.

His lawyer, Bo King, said the last three men to be executed in the state chose lethal injection and said the process lasted about 20 minutes before they were dead.

He said Sigmon was left with “an impossible choice” and was forced “to decide whether to die by the firing squad, knowing that the bullets are going to break the bones in his chest and destroy his heart, or risk a 20-minute-long execution strapped to a gurney with your lungs filling with blood and fluid”.

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Ahead of the execution, a group of protesters gathered outside the South Carolina Department of Corrections holding signs with messages including “all life is precious” and “execute justice not people”.

There have only been three executions by firing squad in the US since 1977, all of which were in Utah – one of only five states that still offers the method common in the 19th century during the Civil War.

The most recent execution by firing squad was Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010. He was given the death penalty for killing a man during an attempted escape from a courthouse in 1985.