The state of Alabama (southern USA) executed prisoner Kenneth Eugene Smith suffocated him with nitrogen gas, a method that has never been tried before. Smith, sentenced to death in 1988 for the murder of a contract woman, was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. local time (02:25 GMT Friday) after inhaling nitrogen gas through a mask and running out of oxygen.
His last words, already with his mask on, were: “Tonight, Alabama is making humanity take a step back. Thank you for supporting me. I love you all.” . Journalists who witnessed the execution reported that after the gas began to flow, Smith He squirmed for a few minutes. and then he was seen breathing heavily for a few more minutes. John Hamm, director of the Alabama Department of Corrections, said in a subsequent news conference that the inmate's shaking was “involuntary” but nothing unusual. The nitrogen gas flowed for approximately 15 minutes.
In 1988 Charles Sennett, A Church of Christ minister from Colbert County, Alabama, began arranging the murder of his wife. Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, according to court documents. According to witnesses, Charles was struggling with significant debts and that too He had taken out a large insurance policy for his wife.. He is also said to have been involved in an extramarital affair. The evidence presented in court established that Sennett had hired Billy Gray Williams to carry out the murder, who in turn had hired Billy Gray Williams He recruited John Forrest Parker and Kenneth Eugene Smith, and they were each paid $1,000 for the job.
On March 18, 1988, Smith and Parker drove to the Sennett home on Coon Dog Cemetery Road, where they were greeted by Elizabeth, who was alone at the time. The couple told Sennett that her husband gave them permission to explore the property because they wanted to use the surrounding land for hunting. Sennett then called her husband to verify the request before giving the two men the go-ahead. After wandering around the property for some time, Parker and Smith returned to the house and asked if they could come in to use the bathroom and get some water. Once inside, The pair allegedly attacked Sennett with “their fists and other objects such as a poker, a stick and fireplace tongs.”, as well as a survival knife, the police report states. Several of these items were later found in a pond behind the house. The medical examiner in the case testified that Sennett She was stabbed “eight times in the chest.” and once on each side of the neck, suffering numerous abrasions and cuts.” Smith and Parker then trashed the house to make the scene look like a burglary gone wrong before making off with a stereo and a VCR.
Nitrogen hypoxia is a procedure in which nitrogen, pure or in a concentration high enough to be fatal, is inhaled to the point of asphyxiation. This method was criticized by the United Nations and organizations that defend human rights in the United States They call it torture due to the high level of pain it produces. The case even reached the Supreme Court, which refused to stop the execution on Wednesday. Alabama is one of three states in the country, along with Oklahoma and Mississippi, that allow their use in death sentences, as lethal injection drugs become increasingly difficult to obtain due to drug companies' refusal to approve them for that purpose. .
On April 29, 1996, Smith was found guilty of murder and the jury recommended it was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. However, the judge overturned the jury's recommendation the following May and sentenced Smith to death by electrocution.
In separate trials, Billy Williams was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, while John Parker was sentenced to death. Parker was executed in June 2010, while Williams died in prison in 2020.
After more than two decades on death row Kenneth Smith was scheduled to die in November 2020. However, due to complications, the Alabama Department of Corrections canceled the execution. At the time, a commissioner claimed that the decision was made because the execution was not completed before midnight, the time the death sentence expired. The protocol requires that the lethal injection be performed through two veins. However, they could only access one. They apparently tried for an hour but were unsuccessful.