Carey Dale Grayson lay strapped to a gurney, a blue-rimmed gas mask covering his face. He occasionally shook and took several gasping breaths, his heart continuing to beat for about 10 minutes after the nitrogen started flowing.
A Death Row inmate in the US directed obscene hand gestures and profanity at a prison warden just before his execution for the brutal murder of a hitchhiker 30 years prior.
When asked if he had any final words, Carey Dale Grayson cursed at Terry Raybon, the warden of the William C Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama, leading prison officials to turn off the microphone.
Mr. Raybon removed the microphone after Grayson began by saying, “for you, you need to f*** off,” as reported by Alabama-based AL.com, which noted that the rest of his statement was “unheard” by witnesses.
Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm informed reporters: “He [Grayson] has cursed out most of our employees tonight, so we were not going to give him the opportunity to spew that profanity.”
Shortly after 6 p.m. local time, the curtain to the execution chamber opened. Grayson raised both middle fingers as nitrogen gas started entering his body through a breathing mask.
Strapped to a gurney with a blue-rimmed gas mask on his face, the 50-year-old occasionally shook and took several gasping breaths as the gas flowed—similar to two others previously executed by nitrogen.
He was also observed rocking his head and straining against the gurney restraints.
Mr. Hamm reported that the lethal gas flowed for 15 minutes, with an electrocardiogram indicating Grayson’s heart stopped around 10 minutes into the process.
He appeared to cease breathing at 6:21 p.m. and was officially pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m.
Grayson was one of four teenage boys convicted for the murder of Vickie DeBlieux, who was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother’s home in West Monroe, Louisiana, in February 1994.
Ms. DeBlieux, aged 37, was attacked, beaten, and thrown off a cliff, with her mutilated body discovered at the base of a bluff near Odenville, Alabama.
According to prosecutors, after offering her a ride, the four men took her to a wooded area, where they attacked and beat her, later returning to mutilate her body.
Her face was so severely fractured that identification was only possible through an earlier spinal X-ray, as noted by a medical examiner.
The teenagers were identified as suspects when one of them showed a friend one of the victim’s severed fingers and bragged about the murder, investigators revealed.
This marks the third time this year that an inmate has been executed using nitrogen hypoxia in the state. The condemned individual inhales only nitrogen gas through a mask, depriving them of oxygen.
Campaigners argue that this method can result in prolonged suffering, but a federal appeals court recently dismissed arguments from Grayson’s lawyers, allowing the execution to proceed.
Jodi Haley, Ms. DeBlieux’s daughter, who was 12 at the time of her mother’s death, described her mother as “unique,” “spontaneous,” “wild,” and “funny” when speaking to reporters at the prison following the execution.
However, she criticized Grayson’s sentence, stating that “executing inmates under the pretense of justice must end.”
The execution took place just hours after the US Supreme Court denied Grayson’s request for a stay. Alabama is the sole state in the US to have executed someone using nitrogen hypoxia, although Oklahoma and Mississippi have also approved its use.
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