I used to do this for a living. I worked for a traveling
death squad in
Etobicoke; my job was to make sure the marksmen's
uniforms were immaculate before each gig. An "execution style"
murder goes like this:
someone hires the
contractor to kill
somebody else, then the contractor's squad does the actual work. You have, of course, the aforementioned marksmen, with their
bayonets. And the squad leader - the one who shouts
"ready, aim... fire!" and coordinates
everything, like the scheduling, practice sessions on the firing range, choice of uniform for the day, etc. There's the blindfolder, who (obviously) applies the
blindfold to the recipient and lights the traditional Last
Cigarette. And the
videotape unit (which sometimes included moi, with one of the boom mics, or as a go-fer in post-production), who record the whole thing for posterity (this is optional to the
client, and he/she incurs an added charge for the
tape).
The whole thing is quite an elaborate ceremony (sometimes "ritual execution" and "execution-style killing" are used interchangeably, as you may know); I particularly liked the dance that the blindfolder did whilst he performed the blindfolding and cigarette-lighting portion of the execution. I have some old tapes tucked away somewhere, if you'd like to see some of this.