An Alabama prisoner convicted of the 1994 murder of a female hitchhiker is set to become the third person executed by nitrogen gas. Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was one of four teenagers convicted of killing Vickie Deblieux, 37, who was hitchhiking through Alabama on her way to her mother’s home in Louisiana.
Grayson is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in south Alabama. Alabama recently introduced the use of nitrogen gas as a new execution method, replacing lethal injection which was first used in 1982. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the person’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen.
While Alabama maintains the method is constitutional, critics have raised concerns about its effectiveness. The first two executions using nitrogen gas reportedly resulted in the individuals shaking for several minutes before death.
Deblieux’s mutilated body was discovered at the bottom of a bluff near Odenville, Alabama, in 1994. Prosecutors stated that Deblieux was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother’s home in West Monroe, Louisiana, when she accepted a ride from the four teens. The teens then allegedly attacked and beat her, threw her off a cliff, and later returned to mutilate her body.
Grayson, who was 19 at the time of the crime, is the only one of the four facing a death sentence. The other teens were under 18 and received different sentences. Grayson’s final appeals focused on the need for more scrutiny of the new execution method, arguing that it may cause conscious suffocation.
Despite Grayson’s requests for a stay of execution and the opportunity to take a sedative before the procedure, the Alabama attorney general’s office has pushed for the execution to proceed. They stated that the nitrogen hypoxia protocol has been used successfully twice before, resulting in death within minutes.
