Alabama has scheduled its fourth execution this year; it is scheduled to take place on the Thursday before Thanksgiving.
Governor Kay Ivey has set the execution date for Carey Dale Grayson for the 30-hour period between midnight on November 21 and 6 a.m. on November 22. Thanksgiving is on November 28.
“Although I do not currently intend to grant clemency in this case, I reserve the authority under the Constitution of the State of Alabama to grant a reprieve or commutation of sentence at any time prior to execution if necessary,” Ivey wrote in a letter to John Hamm, commissioner of the Department of Corrections, setting the execution date.
Nitrogen hypoxia will be used as the method of death, making his execution the third time this year that the state has approved this controversial method. If the execution does take place, it will take place in the death chamber at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
The crime
Grayson, now 49, was found guilty of capital crimes along with three other teens for torturing, beating and mutilating Vickie Deblieux on Feb. 21, 1994. Deblieux, 37, was hitchhiking from Chattanooga to Louisiana to visit her mother when the teens picked her up on Interstate 59 near Trussville in Jefferson County, court records show.
More: Execution by nitrogen gas: Kenneth Smith suffers convulsions for four minutes in the Alabama death chamber
Court records and media reports paint a grim picture of Deblieux’s final hours on earth. Grayson was convicted of capital crimes along with Kenny Loggins, Trace Duncan and Louis Mangione.
After the group picked her up on the highway, she went into a wooded area on Bald Mountain and pretended the teens were going to get another vehicle. Deblieux was beaten, kicked and stomped to death. According to witnesses, one teen stood on her throat and tried to kill her.
Her body was thrown off a cliff. The teens later returned and mutilated her corpse, making at least 180 cuts into the body, removing part of one of her lungs, and severing her fingers. The teens became murder suspects when Mangione showed one of Deblieux’s fingers to a friend.
The death sentences of Duncan, Loggins and Mangione were overturned and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole after the United States Supreme Court in 2005 banned the execution of criminals who were younger than 18 at the time of the crime. Grayson was 19 at the time of the murder.
The execution method
Nitrogen hypoxia is a controversial method of execution that has only been tried once in the United States, when Kenneth Eugene Smith was executed in Alabama in January. Smith’s execution by this method sparked national and international scorn and media attention, including a protest from the Vatican.
There are about 160 inmates on death row in Alabama, and they have a choice of which method of execution to use. The three methods of execution in Alabama are lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia, and electrocution. Grayson is one of about 30 inmates who chose nitrogen hypoxia before it was first used in Alabama.
More: Executions in Alabama through the years: facts, figures and failures
The nitrogen hypoxia method involves the condemned person breathing pure nitrogen through a mask, which displaces the oxygen in their body. Supporters claim it is a nearly instantaneous and painless method. Opponents claim it is untested and amounts to torture.
Smith appeared to writhe and convulse on the gurney for at least four minutes during the execution. State and prison officials had stated before the execution that Smith would lose consciousness “within seconds” and be dead within minutes as the gas began to flow into the full-face mask Smith was wearing.
John Q. Hamm, director of the Alabama Department of Corrections, called Smith’s execution “textbook” in a press conference about half an hour after the execution and said the prison system was prepared to carry out more executions under nitrogen hypoxia.
If Grayson is executed, he would likely be the third inmate in the state to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia. Alan Eugene Miller is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia on September 26.
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at [email protected].
