A foul-mouthed Alabama inmate who murdered a hitchhiker with his teenage friends enjoyed an extravagant last meal before being put to death by a controversial execution method Thursday evening.
Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. local time after inhaling nitrogen from a mask under the state’s new nitrogen hypoxia execution method.
The inmate was also seen pointing the middle finger to at least his left hand as he continued to say something loudly toward what appeared to be the center of the viewing room at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility – where state officials usually sit.
Grayson had been on death row for the gruesome 1994 bludgeoning of 37-year-old hitchhiker Vickie DeBlieux, when he was just 19 years old and his co-defendants were not yet 18.
He chose not to eat breakfast or lunch, just coffee and Mountain Dew. But for his last meal, Grayson had a seafood platter, soft tacos, beef burritos, a tostada, chips and guacamole paired with a Mountain Dew Blast.
The gas then started flowing at 6:12 p.m., at which point Grayson was heard gasping for breath.
He was also seen raising and shaking his head from side to side, and at around 6:14 p.m. he lifted both his legs off the stretcher.
Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was executed Thursday in Alabama using nitrogen gas
During a press conference, Pastor Dr. comforts him. Jeff Hood (L), the spiritual advisor to convicted murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith, Smith’s wife Deanna Smith.
But soon the movements began to slow as Grayson continued to gasp for breath periodically over the next few minutes.
But Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said the movements were “all a show,” noting that his subsequent shocks were inconsistent with nitrogen gas executions.
Prosecutors have said DeBlieux was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to visit her mother in Louisiana when Grayson and his three teenage friends, Kenny Loggins, Trace Duncan and Louis Mangione, approached her on Interstate 59, the Montgomery Advertiser Reports.
They lured her to a wooded area and claimed they were going to switch vehicles when the four men beat her, stomped on her and kicked her to death.
Testimony shows that one of the suspects even stood on DeBlieux’s throat in an attempt to kill her before throwing her off a cliff.
Her last words would be: ‘Okay, I’m going to party’ according to WVTM.
The teenagers later returned to the scene of the crime and mutilated her body, cutting it at least 180 times, removing part of one of her lungs and cutting off all her fingers.
They were eventually linked to the crime after Mangione showed one of DeBlieux’s fingers to his friends, prosecutors said.
He was pronounced dead at the William C Holman Correctional Facility at 6:33 pm local time
Grayson was sentenced to death, while the death sentences of the others involved in the crime were commuted to life sentences in 2005, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute someone for a crime committed as a minor.
His lawyers made a last-ditch effort Tuesday to appeal his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
They said it “raises issues of national importance” in states that allow the death penalty about “whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits the asphyxiation of a conscious prisoner and whether a state’s refusal to prevent conscious asphyxiation through a new method of execution creates additional terror.” and adds pain to violations’ of the Eighth Amendment.”
The method involves placing a gas mask over the prisoner’s face to replace the inhaled air with pure nitrogen gas, which results in death from lack of oxygen.
But when the state executed Alan Eugene Miller, 59, and Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, earlier this year, they were both seen shaking and shaking on the gurney for about two minutes as nitrogen entered their systems.
Grayson’s lawyers had argued that the new form of execution violated the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution
In his filing, attorney John Palombi noted that both men were also conscious as their bodies responded to the procedure.
“I would submit to the court that being conscious and asphyxiated for a period of time constitutes terror added to this protocol and which does not need to be there, as recognized by the fact that the State is prepared to, if he asks, give Mr. Grayson a sedative,’ he wrote, according to NBC News.
However, Robert Overing, Alabama’s deputy attorney general, countered that nitrogen hypoxia is not the same as asphyxiation.
“This is really apples and oranges, trying to use the term ‘suffocation’ to evoke fear and pain that doesn’t exist with this method,” he argued.
The Supreme Court ultimately denied the request Thursday, just hours before Grayson was set to die.
Meanwhile, protesters continued to write to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, hoping she would halt the execution.
She shared a petition which alleged that Grayson had a traumatic childhood due to the loss of his mother at a young age and neglect by his father, which promoted early drug and alcohol abuse.
It also claims the inmate suffered from bipolar disorder, noting that prosecutors argued the other co-defendants were just as guilty, “if not more so” than Grayson.
“Allowing him to be executed while the other three are serving life sentences would be unfair and unjust,” they said.
But Ivey appeared to have stood by her decision not to intervene after Grayson’s death.
“About 30 years ago, Vicki DeBlieux’s journey to her mother’s home and ultimately her life was horribly cut short because of Carey Grayson and three other men,” she said.
“Sensing something was wrong, she tried to escape but was brutally tortured and killed instead,” the governor alleged.
“Even after her death, Mr. Grayson’s crimes against Ms. DeBlieux were heinous, unimaginable, without an ounce of respect for human life and simply inexplicably vile. An execution by nitrogen hypoxia does not compare to the death and mutilation that Mrs. DeBlieux experienced.
“I pray for her loved ones that they may continue to find closure and healing.”
State Attorney General Steve Marshall added that “Grayson and his accomplices brutally murdered a complete stranger and mutilated her body.
“It takes a truly vicious monster to commit these types of crimes,” Marshall said, adding, “Justice was served tonight.
“My prayer for Vickie’s family is that they can find comfort in the state of Alabama, where justice can finally be brought for their heartbreaking loss,” he said. “And I hope that one day it won’t take three decades for justice to be delivered to other victims of violent crime.”