Death row killer spews 7 last words and makes obscene gesture as he's executed by gas

A vile Death Row murderer hurled seven final words before being executed by a controversial gassing method on Thursday evening. Carey Dale Grayson, found guilty of the horrific 1994 murder of hitchhiker Vickie Deblieux, became the third person to be executed using nitrogen gas.

Vickie Deblieux, 37, had been trying to get from Tennessee to her mum’s home in Louisiana when she accepted a lift from four individuals who then took her to a remote woodland and viciously attacked her, eventually throwing her off a cliff. Grayson's took place at Atmore's state penitentiary, near the Florida border, about 50 miles north of Pensacola, with the execution chamber curtain pulled back around 6.06 pm local time.

As the prison governor read the death warrant, he presented the microphone to Grayson for any last words. The condemned man said, "For you, you need to f*** off."

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Following the crude remark, the warden quickly removed the microphone and Grayson made an obscene gesture with both middle fingers towards him. He then endured a forced suffocation from pressurised nitrogen gas whilst restrained on the gurney, according to Mirror US, and was pronounced dead at 6.33pm, reports the Mirror.

Alabama introduced nitrogen gas as a method of execution earlier this year. The process involves fitting a respirator gas mask over the individual's face, replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, resulting in death due to oxygen deprivation.

This execution was carried out just hours after the US Supreme Court dismissed Grayson's plea for a stay. His legal team had argued that the method required further examination before being utilised again.

Deblieux's body was found at the base of a bluff near Odenville, Alabama, on 26 February 1994. She had been hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother's house in West Monroe, Louisiana, when four teenagers offered her a ride.

According to prosecutors, the teens took her to a wooded area where they assaulted and beat her. They threw her off a cliff and later returned to disfigure her body further, stabbing her 180 times.

Governor Kay Ivey released a statement minutes after Thursday's execution, expressing her prayers for the murder victim's family to find closure and healing, even 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.