The United States (US) saw its third execution using nitrogen gas. A report by the news agency Associated Press on Friday (Nov 22) said that an Alabama man convicted in the 1994 killing of a hitchhiker cursed at the prison warden and made obscene gestures with his hands shortly before he was put to death Thursday evening.
The man was identified as 50-year-old Carey Dale Grayson. The Associated Press report said that Grayson was executed at the C. Holman Correctional Facility in southern Alabama.
Like two others previously executed by nitrogen, Grayson shook at times before taking a periodic series of gasping breaths.
The 1994 killing of a hitchhiker
Grayson, who was then a teen, was one of the four teenagers convicted of killing 37-year-old Vickie DeBlieux in 1994. DeBlieux was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother’s home in West Monroe, Louisiana, when Grayson and three others offered her a ride.
Prosecutors said the four teenagers took her to a wooded area and attacked and beat her. She was then thrown off a cliff. The report said that the woman’s mutilated body was found at the bottom of a bluff near Odenville, Alabama.
A medical examiner testified that her face was so fractured that she was identified by an earlier X-ray of her spine. Investigators said the teenagers were identified as suspects after one of them showed a friend one of DeBlieux’s severed fingers and boasted about the killing.
Grayson was the only one of the four teenagers who faced a death sentence since the other teens were under 18 at the time of the killing. He was 19.
The execution using nitrogen gas
The curtains to the execution room were opened shortly after 6 pm local time on Thursday.
Strapped to a gurney with a blue-rimmed gas mask on his face, Grayson responded with an obscenity when the warden asked if he had any final words. Prison officials turned off the microphone.
The man appeared to speak toward the witness room where state officials were present, but his words could not be heard. He raised both middle fingers at the start of the execution.
It was unclear when the gas began flowing, but Grayson was pronounced dead at 6.33 pm local time.
The execution was carried out hours after the US Supreme Court turned down Grayson’s request for a stay.
(With inputs from agencies)