An Alabama inmate was put to death Thursday using nitrogen gas for the 1991 rape and murder of a 41-year-old woman.
Demetrius Frazier, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. local time, about 18 minutes after the gas started flowing into his blue-rimmed mask.
“First of all I want to apologize to the family and friends of Pauline Brown. What happened to Pauline Brown should have never happened,” he said.
Frazier then criticized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for failing to return him to Michigan where he had been serving a life sentence for killing a 14-year-old girl.
In 1992, and while he was in jail for the teen’s murder, Frazier confessed to killing Brown after breaking into her home while she slept on Nov. 27, 1991.
The then 19-year-old demanded money from the victim and raped her at gunpoint before shooting her in the head.
In 1996, an Alabama jury convicted Frazier of Brown’s murder and sentenced him to death.
He then was moved to Alabama’s death row in 2011. His mother and several activists pleaded with Whitmer to take him back to Michigan and spare him death.
“It’s really a tough situation,” she said. “I understand the pleas and concerns. Michigan is not a death penalty state.”
