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    • Carey Dale Grayson will be gassed for killing a hitchhiker
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    Carey Dale Grayson will be gassed for killing a hitchhiker

    Online Niel Posted on

    Carey Dale Grayson is set to die by nitrogen hypoxia after being convicted of killing 37-year-old hitchhiker Vickie Deblieux in 1994. Advocates say it’s a painless method. Opponents call it torture

    An Alabama death row inmate is set to become the third inmate executed by nitrogen gas in the country on Thursday for his role in the brutal 1994 murder of a hitchhiker.

    Carey Dale Grayson, now 49, was one of four teenagers convicted of murder in the death by torture, beating and mutilation of Vickie Lynn Deblieux on February 21, 1994. Deblieux, 37, was hitchhiking from South east Tennessee to visit his mother in the west. Monroe, Louisiana, when the four teenagers picked her up along a highway near Trussville and soon after killed her, court records show.

    If Grayson’s execution goes ahead as the state plans Thursday, he will become the 22nd prisoner executed in the nation so far this year. It would also be the state’s sixth execution in a year and third in two months, the Montgomery Advertiser reportedpart of the USA TODAY Network.

    As his execution nears, USA TODAY looks back at the murder, who Grayson is and what led him to murder.

    More on what Carey Dale Grayson was convicted of

    On February 21, 1994, Deblieux was dropped off by a friend in Chattanooga near Interstate 59, where she began hiking in the Southwest.

    At one point, Grayson – who was 19 – and three other teenagers took Deblieux along an interstate in Jefferson County, Alabama, about 15 miles northeast of Birmingham.

    The teenagers stopped in a wooded area on Bald Mountain, using the ruse that they were going to get another vehicle. There, Deblieux was beaten, trampled and kicked. Testimony showed that Grayson and another teenager stood on her neck to kill her.

    Her body was eventually thrown off a cliff. The teenagers later returned and mutilated his body, slashing his body at least 180 times and removing a portion of one of his lungs and cutting off his fingers, court records show.

    The teenagers became suspects in the murder when one of the boys showed a friend one of Deblieux’s fingers.

    In addition to Grayson, a jury convicted Kenny Loggins, Trace Duncan and Louis Mangione of capital murder.

    Duncan, Loggins and Mangione had their death sentences overturned and each received life in prison without the possibility of parole. The measure came in 2005 after the US Supreme Court banned the execution of people who were under 18 when they committed a crime.

    More about the nitrogen gas method

    Nitrogen hypoxia is a controversial method of execution, having only been attempted for the first time in the country when Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith in January. Smith’s execution by this method attracted national and international scorn and media attention, including an outcry from the Vatican.

    Smith appeared to writhe and convulse on the stretcher for at least four minutes during the execution. State and prison officials said before the execution that Smith was expected to lose consciousness “within seconds” and die within minutes once the gas began flowing into the full-face mask Smith was wearing.

    Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm called Smith’s execution “manual” in a news conference about half an hour after the execution and said the prison system was ready to move forward with other hypoxia nitrogen executions.

    In Alabama, there are about 160 inmates on death row and they are given the option of which method of execution will be used: lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia and electrocution. Grayson is among about 30 inmates who chose the nitrogen hypoxia method before it was first used in Alabama.

    In the nitrogen hypoxia method, convicts breathe pure nitrogen through a mask that replaces the oxygen in their system. Proponents claim it is an almost instant and painless method. Opponents claim it has not been tried and amounts to torture.

    On September 26, Alan Eugene Miller he became the second inmate in Alabama to be executed with nitrogen hypoxia as a method.

    Grayson’s calls are almost all sold out

    Grayson filed several appeals over the years and lost. His last hope for a reprieve remains the U.S. Supreme Court and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who responded to a question from the Montgomery Advertiser about the timing of Grayson’s execution a week before Thanksgiving by saying, “Did Carey Grayson take any attention to the fact that he robbed Vicki DeBlieux and her family 30 Thanksgivings ago?”

    On August 15, the Alabama Supreme Court authorized Grayson’s execution. Days later, his lawyers asked a federal judge to block the state from using the nitrogen protocol.

    Lawyers pointed to Smith’s execution, saying the method could amount to cruel and unusual punishment because it did not guarantee a painless death for their client.

    More about Carey Dale Grayson

    Grayson has bipolar disorder, and his mother died when he was 3 after battling mental illness, according to court records.

    A forensic psychologist testified that Grayson was “in a manic state” at the time of the crime, but that he “knew the difference between right and wrong and was able to appreciate the nature and quality or illegality of his acts,” court records say.

    In an interview with police, Grayson described the younger teenagers as the most heinous acts during the crime. Asked why they killed Deblieux, court records say, he told police he didn’t know and that “it wasn’t his problem.”

    Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] and follow her on X @nataliealund.

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