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Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Alabama executed Demetrius Terrence Frazier by nitrogen hypoxia on Thursday evening. Frazier, 52, was the first person executed in Alabama this year following his conviction in the 1991 rape and murder of 41-year-old Pauline Brown.
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Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey refused to grant clemency for Frazier and instead told Corrections Commissioner John Hamm to fulfill Frazier's death sentence, WBMA reported.
"In Alabama, we enforce the law. You don't come to our state and mess with our citizens and get away with it," Ivey said. "Rapists and murderers are not welcome on our streets, and tonight, justice was carried out for Pauline Brown and her loved ones."
Ivey said she she hopes Brown's family can continue to heal from their loss and are assured that Frazier cannot harm anyone else.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall called Frazier a "monster" who "left behind a trail of unspeakable violence."
Frazier and activists who supported him tried to get him transferred to his former state of residence in Michigan to serve four life sentences for other criminal convictions there and avoid the death penalty in Alabama, Marshall said.
"For the crimes he committed in Alabama, he was fairly and appropriately punished," Marshall said in a statement.
The Alabama Supreme Court recently issued an order to the Alabama Department of Corrections to carry out Frazier's execution by nitrogen hypoxia.
Frazier had two visitors and one phone call on Wednesday and seven visitors and one phone call the day his sentence was executed, the Alabama Department of Corrections told UPI.
He refused breakfast and lunch the day of his execution.
His last meal was dinner: Burritos, chicken chalupa, tacos, chips and dip and Mountain Dew.
The execution was scheduled for 6 p.m. CST Thursday.
Following the prison warden reading Frazier's death warrant, he issued his final statement.
"First of all, I want to apologize" to friends and family of Brown and to the Black community, he said, AL.com reported.
"What happened to Pauline Brown should have never happened."
He then instructed media to contact a former Detroit Police Department detective concerning a false confession he allegedly made concerning the 1992 killing of a 14-year-old.
"Detroit strong. I love everybody on death row," he said. "Let's go."
Frazier was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., the Alabama Department of Corrections confirmed to UPI in a emailed statement.
Hamm told reporters during a press conference following the execution that the gas flowed from about 6:13 p.m. or 6:14 p.m. to five minutes past flatline.
Media witnesses reported seeing movement from Fraizer for about eight minutes from the start of the gas flowing.
Hamm said they believe that Frazier lost consciousness when his hands and wrists stopped "swirling."
Asked what it means that Frazier exhibited less movement than the three other inmates to be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia, Hamm replied: "All people are different so the body's going to react different. So, Mr. Frazier, he didn't have a lot of body movement, as you all saw."
"That's just the individual," he said.
Hamm added that the execution went according to plan.
Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was executed in Alabama in January of last year, was the first U.S. inmate to be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial method to execute a death sentence, which the United Nations has said is prohibited under international law.
The inmate dies by inhaling nitrogen gases, which causes what is known as hypoxia, or a deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues.
Alabama approved the use of nitrogen in 2018.
Fraizer's lawyers had argued the nitrogen hypoxia method of capital punishment violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
"Mr. Frazier chose to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia in June 2018 and we will honor his request," the Alabama Attorney General's office said in a statement.
Marshall said nitrogen hypoxia, essentially asphyxiation caused by breathing pure nitrogen, "is both humane and effective."
Frazier is the fourth person to be put to death in Alabama by nitrogen hypoxia, after Smith, Alan Eugene Miller in September and Carey Grayson in November.
According to court documents, Frazier crept into Brown's apartment in the early morning of Nov. 26, 1991, while armed with a handgun.
"Frazier then forced her at gunpoint to have sexual intercourse with him," the Alabama Supreme Court document said. "While he was raping her, Ms. Brown begged Frazier not to kill her. When Ms. Brown refused to stop begging for her life, Frazier put the pistol to the back of her head and fired the gun."
After killing her, Frazier left her apartment to watch to see if anybody heard the shot. He then re-entered her apartment to look for more money and make sure she was dead.
Frazier was 19 when he raped and killed Brown.
He was convicted of capital murder in 1996 and sentenced to death by a jury vote of 10-2.
Other than Florida, Alabama is the only state that permits a non-unanimous jury recommendation for the death penalty.
"Alabama has executed #DemetriusFrazier. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord," the Catholic Mobilizing Network, which advocates for the abolishment of the death penalty, said in a statement on X after Frazier was executed.
"This is not the justice we seek."
Frazier is the third person to be executed in the United States this year. Texas executed Steven Lawayne Nelson on Wednesday.
