COLUMBIA — Two decades after Stephen Bryant killed three men during a weeklong crime spree in rural Sumter County, the condemned prisoner is set to be executed on Nov. 14.

The state Supreme Court issued Bryant’s execution order on Oct. 17, three days after the nation’s highest court declined to review the 44-year-old inmate’s death sentence.

In South Carolina, death row inmates have a choice of being executed by electric chair, lethal injection or firing squad.

Bryant was sentenced to death for fatally shooting Willard Tietjen, 62, on Oct. 11, 2004, after he broke into the man’s home. Bryant shot Tietjen nine times and looted the house. He burned Tietjen’s face and eyes with a cigarette.

Bryant was also given two life sentences for shooting to death two other men in Sumter County’s W

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