An Alabama man convicted of killing and mutilating a hitchhiker in 1994 was executed Thursday evening, marking the third nitrogen gas execution nationwide.
Carey Dale Grayson, 50, responded with obscenities when the warden asked if he had any final statements.
He also made obscene gestures at the start of his execution that lasted for about 20 minutes.
The convicted murderer shook at times, rocked his head, pulled against the gurney restraints before taking a periodic series of more than a dozen gasping breaths.
He stopped breathing at 6:21 p.m., 15 minutes after the gas started flowing. He was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m.
Grayson was 19 years old when he and three other teens offered Vickie DeBlieux, 37, a ride as she hitchhiked from Chattanooga to her mother’s home in West Monroe, Louisiana.
The woman was taken to a wooded area, attacked, beaten, tortured and left for dead. The teens later returned and mutilated her body.
The gruesome crime was discovered when one of the teens showed a friend, DeBlieux’s severed finger while boasting about the slaying.
