Kenneth Eugene Smith, the prisoner executed this Thursday in Alabama after being sentenced to death in 1988 for the murder of a contract woman, When he put on the nitrogen gas mask, he writhed for two minutes and then stopped moving.. The response, according to John Hamm, director of the Alabama Department of Corrections, was as expected, although this method of capital punishment had been used experimentally on this inmate.
As several witnesses told local newspaper AL.com, At 7:53 p.m. the curtain opened over the media witness room.. Blacksmith He was taken to the execution room by prison officials, that they brought him to the place where he would die. Moments later and after I let him say a few final words, They put a mask on him that was connected to a device that emits nitrogen gasa substance that causes death if inhaled if they run out of oxygen.
Next, The command was given to turn on the device and the gas began to flow through a tube that ended in the mask. At that moment, Smith smiled, nodded to his family and said, “I love you.” During this process Smith “He contorted with involuntary movements of his body.”according to the story of those present, between two and four minutes. From then on some came five minutes of “heavy breathing”as witnesses told AL.com, a process that Alabama corrections officials said went “as expected.”
At 8:07 p.m., a correctional officer leaned over the gurney and closely examined Smith's face before returning to his position against the wall. According to state authorities, Smith's time of death was 8:25 p.m., almost 20 minutes later. Smith's wedding ring was visible from the media witness seats. Smith's spiritual advisor, Reverend Hood, continued to bless him throughout the execution.
Nitrogen gas flowed through his body for a total of fifteen minutes. The prisoner's last words were: “Tonight, Alabama is making humanity take a step back. Thank you for supporting me. I love you all.” He died at 8:25 p.m. local time (02:25 GMT on Friday).
The words of the victim's son
The son of the woman Smith murdered was present at the execution. Mike Sennett, who said at a news conference with his brother Chuck that “nothing happened here today that would make mom come back.” “We're glad this is over,” Mike Sennett said, adding that the “bad deeds” were paid for this evening. “Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett received justice this evening” he concluded.
Minutes earlier, the Supreme Court of the United States had rejected by a vote of 6 to 3 the final appeal filed by the prisoner's defense this Thursday, giving the green light to begin the trial.
Progressive Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the three who voted to stop the execution, argued that “after failing to kill Smith on the first attempt, Alabama chose him as a 'guinea pig' to carry out a trial.” to test an execution method that has never been used before.
Nitrogen hypoxia involves the oral administration of pure nitrogen or at a concentration high enough to be fatal and cause suffocation if inhaled. This method has been criticized by the United Nations and human rights organizations in the United States, which describe it as torture due to the intense pain it causes.
Sentenced to death for murder
Smith was sentenced to death for events in 1988 when Charles Sennett, pastor of the Church of Christ in Colbert County, Alabama, began arranging the murder of his wife, Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, according to court documents. According to testimony, Charles was struggling with significant debts and had taken out a large insurance policy for his wife. He is also said to have been involved in an extramarital affair. Evidence presented in court revealed that Sennett recruited Billy Gray Williams to carry out the murder, who in turn recruited John Forrest Parker and Kenneth Eugene Smith, reportedly receiving $1,000 each 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 couple allegedly attacked Sennett with “their fists and other objects such as a poker, a stick, a pair of chimney tongs” and a survival knife, the police report said. Several of these items were later found in a pond behind the house.
The medical examiner in the case testified that Sennett was “stabbed eight times in the chest and once on each side of the neck and suffered numerous abrasions and cuts.” Smith and Parker then destroyed the house to make the crime scene look like a robbery gone wrong before making off with a stereo and a VCR.
Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 1,583 prisoners have been executed in the United States, 73 of them in Alabama.