This photo provided by South Carolina Department of Corrections shows Steven Bixby. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A man who shot and killed an off-duty police officer in South Carolina is scheduled to become the fifth person executed in the state since the death penalty resumed last fall following a 13-year pause.

Mikal Mahdi’s execution will take place April 11 at 6 p.m. at a prison in the capital of Columbia, the state Supreme Court announced Friday.

The court postponed a potential sixth execution, that of Steven Bixby, who killed two police officers in an Abbeville County land dispute in December 2003. Bixby was slated to be put to death in May, but the court decided that a judge first needs to determine if he is mentally competent.

A psychologist said Bixby understands what led to his death sentence, but that he also thinks blood found on his clothes the night of the killings contains Jesus Christ’s DNA.

Mahdi, 41, can choose between lethal injection, electrocution or a firing squad. The firing squad was the method chosen by Brad Sigmon, who on March 7 became the first prisoner executed by bullets in the U.S. in 15 years. If Mahdi does not make a decision by March 28, he will be sent to the electric chair.

Three other prisoners have been executed since September: Freddie Owens on Sept. 20; Richard Moore on Nov. 1; and Marion Bowman Jr. on Jan. 31, all by lethal injection.

A troubled childhood

Mahdi had a long history of troubled behavior starting as a child, according to his attorney David Weiss. As early as the second grade, he suffered from mental despair and talked about harming himself, Weiss said. By the time he was a teen, he already had a criminal record, spending weeks in solitary confinement after being convicted of breaking and entering and attacking a police officer in Virginia.

“He was repeatedly failed by his own family and the justice system, who neglected to see him for who he was: a wounded child?in need of support," Weiss said in a written statement. "Mikal’s story is one of trauma, neglect, and the many missed opportunities for providing him the safety and compassion that every child should have."

A string of crimes ending in homicide

On July 14, 2004, when he was 21, Mahdi stole a gun and a car in Virginia, arrest records show. The following day, he fatally shot a North Carolina store clerk in the face as the clerk was checking Mahdi’s ID. On July 17, 2004, he carjacked someone at an intersection in Columbia, South Carolina.

On the run from those crimes, Mahdi hid in the shed of Orangeburg, South Carolina, public safety officer James Myers, on July 18, 2004. He ambushed Meyers when the officer returned from an out-of-town birthday celebration for his wife, sister and daughter, prosecutors said.

Myers, 56, was shot eight or nine times, including twice in the head after he fell to the ground. A pathologist testified that at least seven of the shots would have been fatal.

Mahdi then set Myers' body on fire and fled. Myers' wife found her husband dead in the same shed they had used for the backdrop of their wedding less than 15 months before, authorities said.

Mahdi was captured on July 21, 2004, in Florida. When one of the officers involved in his arrest discovered what he was wanted for in South Carolina, he thanked Mahdi for not shooting at him. Mahdi responded that the only reason he didn't was because he didn't think he'd be able to successfully shoot two officers and their dog and get away with it.

As a prisoner, Mahdi has been caught three times with tools he could have used to escape: one was an Allen wrench and the others were homemade handcuff keys, one of which was found under his tongue at his trial, court records show. While on death row, he stabbed a guard and hit another worker with a concrete block. Three times, prison employees found sharpened metal in his cell that could be used as a knife, according to the records.

Mahdi’s defense: an arranged marriage and a chaotic childhood

At his trial, Mahdi’s lawyers noted that he was the second son of a woman wed at age 16 in an arranged marriage. His family described a chaotic childhood, but there was no testimony of abuse or mental illness as is frequently seen in other death penalty cases.

Mahdi chose to plead guilty to murder and be sentenced by Judge Clifton Newman. At the time, the judge told The Post and Courier that he wasn’t sure he believed in the death penalty but the case became bigger than his beliefs.

“My challenge and my commitment throughout my judicial career has been to temper justice with mercy and to seek to find the humanity in every defendant that I sentence,” Newman said as he handed down Mahdi’s punishment. “That sense of humanity seems not to exist in Mikal Deen Mahdi.”

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The first paragraph has been edited to correct that the pause in executions was for 13 years, not 13 months.

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