Thirty years after the brutal death of a woman he was convicted of murdering, Carey Dale Grayson took less than 30 minutes to die.
But the third inmate to be executed in Alabama with the use of nitrogen gas did not go quietly.
His final public words were so vile, officials at Holman Correctional Facility, in Atmore, Alabama, cut him off.
The execution started at 6:06 p.m., according to WKRG-TV in Mobile, when the curtains opened on the death chamber. Grayson was visible, strapped to a gurney with the gas mask on his face.
Warden Terry Raybon asked for his last statement, and Grayson responded with “Uh, yeah, for you, you need to f*** off,” WKRG reported.
His microphone was then muted.
“That was enough,” said Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm, according to WKRG.
“He’s cussed out most of our employees tonight, so we’re not going to give him the opportunity to just spew that profanity.”
But Grayson wasn’t quite through. At 6:11 p.m., just before the nitrogen gas began flowing, he raised both middle fingers — presumably continuing his previous message of obscenity, according to WKRG.
According to AL.com, a website of Alabama newspapers, Grayson was then approached by Kacey Keeton, his attorney and spiritual advisor.
Keeton told reporters that Grayson then expressed remorse for the crime that put him on death row and criticized the death penalty.
He was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m.
And what was the crime that sent Grayson to the execution chamber? The murder of 37-year-old Vicki DeBlieux, a woman who was beaten to death by a group of teenagers in 1994.
DeBlieux, a mother of a 12-year-old, had been hitchhiking when Grayson — then 19 — and three teenagers under 18 picked her up, took her to a wooded area and beat her to death.
“The defendant, along with the others threw bottles at Ms. Debleiux, who began to run from them. They tackled her to the ground and began to kick her repeatedly all over her body. When they noticed that she was still alive, one of them stood on her throat, supported by the Defendant, until she gurgled blood and said ‘Okay, I’ll party,’ then died,” a trial court summary of the case states.
“They then put her body in the back of a pickup truck and took her and her luggage to Bald Rock Mountain, after removing her clothing and a ring, and they played with her body and then threw her off a cliff.”
Later, the group returned and “began to mutilate the body by stabbing and cutting her 180 times, removing part of a lung, and removing her fingers and thumbs.”
Grayson was the only one of the group to face execution because the others were juveniles at the time of the crime.
Two had been sentenced to death, according to The Associated Press, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that executions for crimes committed by juveniles is unconstitutional.
Alabama is the only state that has used nitrogen gas in executions — known as nitrogen hypoxia — though Mississippi and Oklahoma have also approved its use, according to The Associated Press.
In a statement Thursday, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a conservative Republican, appeared to have no qualms about the method.
“Some thirty 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,” the statement said, according to the AP.
“She sensed something was wrong, attempted to escape, but instead, was brutally tortured and murdered …
“An execution by nitrogen hypoxia (bears) no comparison to the death and dismemberment Ms. DeBlieux experienced.”
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