A foul-mouthed Alabama inmate who murdered a female hitchhiker with his teenage friends enjoyed an extravagant final meal before he was put to death by a controversial execution method Thursday night.
Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was pronounced dead at 6.33pm local time after he breathed in nitrogen from a mask under the state’s new nitrogen hypoxia execution method.
But he did not go quietly, telling the prison warden ‘you need to f*** off’ as he pointed a microphone to Grayson’s face for his final words, AL.com reports.
The inmate was also seen pointing the middle finger on at least his left hand as he continued saying something in a loud manner towards what appeared to be the middle of the viewing room at William C Holman Correctional Facility – where the state officials usually sit.
Grayson had languished on death row for the grisly 1994 murder and bludgeoning of hitchhiker Vickie DeBlieux, 37, when he was just 19 years old and his co-defendants were under the age of 18.
He chose not to eat breakfast or lunch, instead only having coffee and Mountain Dew. But for his final 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 6.12pm, after which Grayson could be heard gasping.
Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was executed in Alabama on Thursday using nitrogen gas
Alabama’s lethal injection chamber at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore is pictured in October 2002
Grayson was seen pointing the middle finger on at least his left hand as he continued saying something in a loud manner towards what appeared to be the middle of the viewing room at William C Holman Correctional Facility – where the state officials usually sit.
He was also seen raising and shaking his head left to right, and at around 6.14pm he lifted both of his legs from the gurney.
Soon though, the movements began to slow as Grayson continued to let out periodic gasps over the next few minutes.
But Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said the movements were ‘all show,’ noting that his later jolts 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 had lured her to a wooded area claiming that they were going to switch vehicles when the four men beat her, stomped on her and kicked her to death.
Testimony shows one of the suspects even stood on DeBlieux’s throat in an effort to kill her, before they threw her off a cliff.
Her last words were said to be, ‘OK, I’ll party,’ according to WVTM.
The teenagers later returned to the site of the crime and mutilated her body, cutting it at least 180 times, removing a portion of one of her lungs and cutting off all of her fingers.
They were ultimately 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 6.33pm local time
Grayson was sentenced to death, while the others involved in the crime had their death sentences amended to life sentences in 2005, after the US Supreme Court ruled that executing an individual for a crime committed when they were a minor is unconstitutional.
His attorneys made a last-ditch effort to appeal his case to the US Supreme Court on Tuesday.
They said it ‘raises issues of national importance’ in states that allow for the death penalty about ‘whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits suffocating a conscious prisoner and whether a state’s refusal to prevent conscious suffocation via a novel method of execution superadds terror and pain in violation of the Eighth Amendment’.
The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the inmate’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by 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 trembling on the gurney for about two minutes as the nitrogen made its way into their systems.
In his filing, attorney John Palombi noted that both men were also conscious as their bodies reacted to the procedure.
‘I would submit to the court that being conscious and being suffocated for a period of time constitutes terror that is superadded to this protocol that does not have to be there, as acknowledged by the fact that the state is willing to, if he requests it, give Mr. Grayson a sedative,’ he wrote, according to NBC News.
Grayson’s attorneys had argued that the novel form of execution violates the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution
Robert Overing, Alabama’s deputy solicitor general, however, countered that nitrogen hypoxia is not the same as suffocation.
‘This is really apples and oranges, trying to use the term “suffocation” to evoke a fear and pain that doesn’t exist with this method,’ he argued.
The Supreme Court ultimately denied the request on Thursday, just hours before Grayson was set to die.
Meanwhile, protestors continued to write to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, hoping she would halt the execution.
They shared a petition that claimed Grayson had a traumatic childhood due to the loss of his mother at a young age and neglect from his father – which promoted early drug and alcohol abuse.
It also claims the inmate suffered from bipolar disorder, and noted that state prosecutors argued that the other co-defendants were 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.
During a press conference Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood (L), the spiritual advisor for convicted killer Kenneth Eugene Smith, comforts Smith’s wife Deanna Smit
But Ivey seemed to have stood by her decision not to intervene following Grayson’s death.
‘Some 30 years ago, Vicki DeBlieux’s journey to her mother’s house and ultimately her life were horrifically cut short because of Carey Grayson and three other men,’ she said.
‘She sensed something was wrong, attempted to escape, but instead was brutally tortured and murdered,’ the governor claimed.
‘Even after her death, Mr. Grayson’s crimes against Ms. DeBlieux were heinous, unimaginable, without an ounce of regard for human life and just unexplainably mean. An execution by nitrogen hypoxia bares no comparison to the death and dismemberment Ms. DeBlieux experienced.
‘I pray for her loved ones, that they may continue finding 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 this kind of crime,’ Marshall said, adding that ‘justice has been served’.
‘My prayer for Vickie’s family is that they can find solace in the State of Alabama finally serving justice for their heartbreaking loss,’ he said. ‘And my hope is that one day, it will not take three decades to provide justice for other victims of violent crimes.’