An evil Death Row murderer uttered seven disgusting final words when given the chance before he was gassed to death using a controversial execution method last night.
Carey Dale Grayson, convicted for the brutal 1994 murder of hitchhiker Vickie Deblieux, became the third person to be executed using nitrogen gas on Thursday.
Vickie Deblieux, 37, was hitchhiking from Tennessee to her mother’s home in Louisiana when she was picked up by four individuals who transported her to a secluded woodland area. There, they savagely attacked her, beating her before throwing her off a cliff.
The execution took place at the state prison in Atmore, a small city bordering Florida, about 50 miles north of Pensacola.
The curtain to the death chamber opened around 6.06pm local time on Thursday. After the prison warden read the death warrant, he put the microphone up to Grayson’s face and asked him if he had any last words.
Grayson said: “For you, you need to f*** off.” The warden quickly removed the microphone after Grayson responded with the obscenity and then raised both his middle fingers at the warden.
He was then forced to choke on an influx of atmospheric gas fed to him via a mask as he was strapped to a gurney, reports the Mirror US.
Grayson was pronounced dead at 6.33pm.
Alabama has started utilising nitrogen gas for some executions earlier this year. 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.
The execution was carried out hours after the US Supreme Court turned down Grayson’s request for a stay. His attorneys had argued that the method needed more scrutiny before being used again.
Deblieux’s mutilated body was found at the bottom of a bluff near Odenville, Alabama, on February 26, 1994.
She was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother’s home in West Monroe, Louisiana, when the four teens offered her a ride. Prosecutors said the teens took her to a wooded area and attacked and beat her.
They threw her off a cliff and later returned to mutilate her body.
A medical examiner testified that the victim’s face was so fractured that she was identified by an earlier X-ray of her spine. Investigators said the teens were identified as suspects after one of them showed a friend one of Vickie Deblieux’s severed fingers and boasted about the killing.
Governor Kay Ivey issued a statement minutes after Thursday’s execution saying she was praying for the murder victim’s loved ones to find closure and healing still decades after the crime.
“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. She sensed something was wrong, attempted to escape, but instead, was brutally tortured and murdered,” Kay said in the statement. Grayson’s crimes “were heinous, unimaginable, without an ounce of regard for human life and just unexplainably mean. An execution by nitrogen hypoxia (bears) no comparison to the death and dismemberment Ms. DeBlieux experienced,” she added.
Grayson was the only one of the four teens who faced a death sentence since the other teens were under 18 at the time of the killing. Grayson was 19.
Two of the teens were initially sentenced to death but those sentences were set aside when the Supreme Court banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crimes. Another teen involved in Deblieux’s killing was sentenced to life in prison.
Grayson’s final appeals had focused on a call for more scrutiny of the nitrogen gas method. His lawyers argued that the person experiences “conscious suffocation” and that the first two nitrogen executions did not result in swift unconsciousness and death as the state had promised.
Lawyers for the Alabama attorney general’s office asked the justices to let the execution proceed, saying a lower court found Grayson’s claims speculative.
