Death Row killer's agonising final 15 minutes before being executed by nitrogen gas

Carey Dale Grayson made an expletive outburst and then took several minutes to die in Alabama as he was seen gasping for breath for the murder of a hitchhiker along with his teenage friends

A death row inmate was seen gasping for breath over several minutes while rocking and shaking the gurney restraints as he was put to death in Alabama after making a final expletive outburst.

Carey Dale Grayson enjoyed an extravagant final meal before controversially being gassed to death for the murder of a hitchhiker along with his teenage friends.

The 50-year-old was pronounced dead at 6.33pm on Thursday after he breathed in nitrogen from a mask under Alabama's new nitrogen hypoxia execution method. However, he did not go quietly, telling the prison warden, "You need to f*** off," as he was asked for his final words. He then raised both middle fingers at the start of the execution.

The killer 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, and a Mountain Dew Blast.

Alabama began using nitrogen gas earlier this year to carry out some executions. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen.

Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said the nitrogen flowed for 15 minutes, and an electrocardiogram showed Grayson no longer had a heartbeat about 10 minutes after the gas began flowing. It was unclear when the gas began flowing.

Grayson rocked his head, shook and pulled against the gurney restraints. He clenched his fist and appeared to struggle to try to gesture again. His sheet-wrapped legs lifted off the gurney into the air.

He took a periodic series of more than a dozen gasping breaths for several minutes. He appeared to stop breathing and then the curtains to the viewing room were closed. Grayson was one of four teenagers convicted of killing Vickie DeBlieux, 37, as she hitchhiked through the state on the way to her mother's home in Louisiana. The woman was attacked, beaten and thrown off a cliff.

DeBlieux's mutilated body was found at the bottom of a bluff near Odenville, Alabama, in February 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 returned to mutilate her body.

A medical examiner testified that her 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 DeBlieux's severed fingers and boasted about the killing.

Her daughter, Jodi Haley, spoke after the execution. Haley was 12 when her mother was killed. She said her mother had her life and future stolen from her. "She was unique. She was spontaneous. She was wild. She was funny. She was gorgeous to boot," Haley said of her mother. She said Grayson was abused in every possible way in his youth, but "society failed this man as a child, and my family suffered because of it."

"Murdering inmates under the guise of justice needs to stop," she said, adding that "no one should have the right to take a person's possibilities, days, and life." The execution was carried out hours after the US Supreme Court turned down Grayson's request for a stay.

His final appeals had focused on a call for more scrutiny of the nitrogen gas method. His lawyers argued the execution method causes "conscious suffocation" and that the first two nitrogen executions did not result in swift unconsciousness and death as the state had promised.