Alabama executed Carey Dale Grayson for the 1994 brutal slaying and mutilation of a hitchhiker in Jefferson County on Thursday evening, making it the state’s sixth execution in 2024.

Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for 50-year-old Grayson to be killed using the relatively new method of pumping nitrogen gas into a mask fitted over an inmate’s face and suffocating him to death.

It was the third nitrogen gas execution carried out in the United States – all by Alabama.

The execution took place at the William C. Hollman Correctional Facility in Atmore at 6 p.m. Thursday. It marks the most executions in a single year in more than a decade.

Grayson used his last words to curse the warden in charge of the prison.

Grayson was convicted with three other men-- all teenagers at the time-- for the murder and mutilation of 37-year-old Vicki Lynn Deblieux. The woman had been hitchhiking when she was picked up by the group of teenagers. Her body was found days later at the base of a cliff.

Her daughter, Jodi Haley, was present at Holman prison on Thursday night. She described her mother at a press conference following the execution. “She was unique. She was spontaneous, she was wild. She was funny and she was gorgeous to boot,” Haley said.

She said she didn’t know what it was like to have a mother while going through life events like graduation, marriage, and children - opportunities that were stolen from her. But Haley also focused on Grayson and her stance against the death penalty.

Grayson was abused “in every possible way,” including having cigarettes put out on his skin, facing physical and sexual abuse and being thrown out on the street as an adolescent, Haley said.

“I have to wonder how all of this slips through the cracks of the justice system. Because society failed this man as a child and my family suffered because of it,” she said.

Haley wondered what kind of positive impact Grayson could have had on lives. The ‘eye for an eye’ justification for the death penalty “it’s not right,” Haley said. “Murdering inmates under the guise of justice needs to stop,” Haley said. “State sanctioned homicide needs never be listed as cause of death,” she said.

“I don’t know who we think we are. To be in such a modern time, we regress when we implement this punishment. I hope and pray my mother’s death will invoke these changes and give her senseless death some purpose,” Haley said.

The execution

The curtains to the execution chamber opened at 6:06 p.m.

The prison warden read the death warrant and pointed the microphone to Grayson’s face to utter his last words, but then immediately backed off after Grayson said, “For you, you need to f*** off.”

Grayson, at one point, also pointed up the middle finger on at least his left hand, which was visible to media witnesses.

“He’s cussed out most of our employees tonight so we were not going to give him the opportunity to spew that profanity,” said Commissioner John Hamm on why the warden took away the microphone.

But following Grayson’s death, his attorney and spiritual advisor Kacey Keeton said that Grayson had more to say when the microphone was taken away. Keeton, who was sitting in the execution chamber with Grayson, said that he was cursing at Raybon specifically with his expletives and not at the broader audience.

After the microphone was taken and those in the witness rooms could not clearly hear him, Keeton said Grayson talked about how he committed a horrible crime and how sorry he was for it, adding that he had been sorry for over 30 years. According to Keeton, Grayson said he repented and that he was saved and knows God, and hopes for forgiveness.

He talked about the prison and disappointment in the system, mentioning that people there are committing murder and are “serial killers.”

Grayson said, according to Keeton, that he hopes everyone knows the state is committing murder in the name of Alabama and the people that live there. He said he was praying for everyone, that God was with them.

Grayson continued leaning his head forward following his remarks and said something in a loud manner towards what appeared the middle execution viewing room, where state officials usually sit, as a guard hung the microphone up and the warden went into a separate room to begin the execution.

The gas apparently started flowing at 6:12 p.m., followed by Grayson gasping and raising, shaking his head left to right. About 6:14 p.m., both of his legs on the gurney raised up. His movements slowed, but he had what appeared to be periodic gasps over the following six minutes when he stopped moving.

At a press conference following the execution, Hamm said the first movements Grayson was doing were “all show” and the later movements were consistent with nitrogen gas executions.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a press release following the execution, listing his time of death as 6:33 p.m.

She said in a press release, “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. Even after her death, Mr. Grayson’s crimes against Ms. DeBlieux were heinous, unimaginable, without an ounce of regard for human life and just unexplainably mean. An execution by nitrogen hypoxia bares no comparison to the death and dismemberment Ms. DeBlieux experienced. I pray for her loved ones that they may continue finding closure and healing.”

Earlier in the evening, an Alabama Department of Corrections spokesperson released details of Grayson’s final meals and visitors. He refused his breakfast and lunch tray, but had coffee and Mountain Dew. For his final meal, Grayson had from local restaurants soft tacos, beef burritos, a tostada, chips and guacamole, and a Mountain Dew Blast.

His visitors included his attorneys Matt Schulz, Kacey Keeton, and Robin Konrad. Grayson also had calls with Konrad and Keeton.

Amnesty International had urged people today to contact Ivey to seek clemency for Grayson. Earlier this week, Death Penalty Action held a protest outside the Capitol in Montgomery on his behalf.

The crime

Deblieux was kidnapped while hitchhiking from Chattanooga to see her mother in Louisiana. She accepted a ride from Grayson, Kenny Loggins, Trace Duncan, and Louis Mangione on the Trussville exit of Interstate 59 on Feb. 22, 1994.

Deblieux’s nude and dismembered body was found four days later at the bottom of a cliff on Bald Rock Mountain in St. Clair County.

Court records show after picking up the woman, the teens took her to an abandoned area near Medical Center East in Birmingham, where they all drank. At some point, the teens attacked and killed Deblieux, drove her body to St. Clair County, then tossed her body and luggage off the cliff.

According to testimony in the teens’ 1996 trials, Mangione went home while the other three returned to the scene and mutilated her body. They stabbed Deblieux’s body more than 180 times, cut open her chest cavity, severed her fingers, and more. The teens later gave a finger to Mangione, who showed it to other friends who then contacted police.

All of the bones in Deblieux’s face and head were broken, and all but one tooth was missing. She was identified by an old X-ray of her spine.

Grayson was 19 at the time of the slaying.

Mangione was 16, while Loggins and Duncan were both 17.

Conviction and sentence

Although different versions of who was the “ringleader” of the attack at their trials, Grayson, Loggins and Duncan were all convicted and Jefferson County Circuit Judge Mike McCormick sentenced those three to death.

Grayson’s sentence came after a unanimous recommendation from the jury.

The judge sentenced Mangione to life in prison without parole. But years later, Loggins and Duncan had their sentences changed to life in prison after the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says juveniles (17 or younger) can’t be sentenced to death. Justice Antonin Scalia cited the Deblieux case in his dissent in that ruling of teens that commit murder “that involve truly monstrous acts.”

After a separate ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, Duncan and Loggins had yet more hearings to allow a judge the opportunity to grant them a possibility of parole in the future.

Loggins was not given the chance of parole; Duncan will be eligible for parole in 2029.

Mangione was also made eligible for parole in 2029 after an appeal.

Deblieux

Vicki Deblieux’s half-brother, Mike Deblieux, told AL.com on Wednesday he hopes Grayson asks for forgiveness and that “God has mercy on his soul.”

But Mike Deblieux said he’s for the death penalty. “An eye for an eye… What they did to her, I think they all should have been put to death,” he said.

“It was horrific what they did,” Mike Deblieux added. He said he knows from reading about the trial that the boys were “on drugs and they’re taking pills and drinking and probably not in their right mind at the time, but you know, there’s no excuse for that and you got to account for your actions.”

Though, the younger Deblieux said he understands the legal reasons why the others are not on death row.

He does not know any family members who plan to attend Grayson’s execution. Mike Deblieux said he and Vicki’s mother is still alive, but is not attending. The half-siblings have different fathers.

Mike Deblieux doesn’t remember much about Vicki, who moved with her mother to the Monroe area of Louisiana after their parents divorced when he was about 7 and Vicki was about 14. He stayed behind with his other siblings. “So, you know, I have just a few memories of her growing up,” he said.

“My mother still thinks about it today. I mean, it’s affected her whole life, …I just remember when it happened, it was devastating to all of us, really. Just hard to believe it happened.”

Vicki had two daughters who would probably have been in their late teens at the time she was killed, Mike Deblieux said.

Mike Deblieux said he recalled his half-sister was living up in Chattanooga around the time of her death.

“What she was doing there (Chattanooga), I have no clue. I know she was trying to get back home to see my mother - her mother. But, you know, I guess she didn’t have the means, so she was trying to hitchhike back (to Louisiana),” Deblieux said.

Appeals

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Grayson’s request to review his case and to halt his execution on Thursday morning.

The last appeals in Grayson’s case had centered on Alabama’s new method of using nitrogen gas to suffocate him. He and other death row inmates had previously sued in 2012 to prevent his execution by lethal injection and later when nitrogen gas was announced, he was among the inmates who signed up for that method.

However, critics — citing how the first two people executed shook for several minutes — say the nitrogen gas method needs more scrutiny, particularly if other states follow Alabama’s path and adopt the new execution method.

In its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and request to halt the execution, attorneys with the Middle District of Alabama Federal Public Defenders Office representing Grayson said the case has national significance.

“Grayson’s petition for writ of certiorari (review) raises issues of national importance among the 27 states that permit capital punishment and the federal government: whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits suffocating a conscious prisoner and whether a state’s refusal to prevent conscious suffocation via a novel method of execution superadds terror and pain in violation of the Eighth Amendment."

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office maintained that execution by nitrogen hypoxia is constitutional and the prior executions have gone according to plan. “What is generally uncontested from the evidence is that the ADOC’s (prison system’s) nitrogen hypoxia protocol has been successfully used twice, and both times it resulted in a death within a matter of minutes.”

When media witnesses described the first inmate - Kenneth Smith - executed by nitrogen hypoxia as having writhed on the gurney, “what the journalists who described Smith writhing did not know was that when Smith was first moving on the gurney, he had not breathed in any nitrogen gas. That suggests his movements were voluntary or associated with holding his breath.”

Grayson’s lawyers had also been seeking a strong sedative if the execution proceeds, but the lawyers on Thursday morning withdrew that request and an emergency hearing set for 11:30 a.m. was canceled.

AL.com reporter Ivana Hrynkiw contributed to this report.