US: Alabama executes the fourth nitrogen gas murder in 1991

The fourth time nitrogen gas has been used for the death penalty in the United States, an Alabama prisoner convicted of killing a woman in her home while she slept was put to death Thursday night.
At 6:36 p.m. CST, 52-year-old Demetrius Frazier was pronounced dead in a jail prison in south Alabama for the 1991 rape and murder of 41-year-old Pauline Brown.
After executions in Texas and South Carolina, this was Alabama's third execution in 2025 and its first this year.

"I want to start by saying I'm sorry to Pauline Brown's family and friends. Frazier had already declared, "What happened to Pauline Brown should never have happened." He also criticized Gretchen Witmer, the governor of Michigan, for failing to act on his requests to be transferred back to complete his prior life sentence in Michigan.

"Everyone on death row is loved by me. He said, "Detroit Strong."

Before Frazier was transferred to Alabama, his mother and opponents of the death penalty had asked Governor Whitmer to let him return to Michigan to finish serving his life sentence for the murder of a teenage girl. The death penalty is not used in Michigan.

The state did not want Frazier back, according to a January statement from the Michigan attorney general's office. According to police sources, Frazier confessed to Brown's murder in 1992 when he was being held in Michigan.

The governor, Rick Snyder, "unfortunately" consented to move Frazier to Alabama, where local authorities took over, Governor Whitmer told The Detroit News prior to the execution.

Ahead to the execution, she informed the media outlet, "It's a really tough situation," "I can appreciate the requests and worries. Michigan does not have the death penalty.


Prosecutors said that Frazier, who was 19 at the time, broke into Brown's Birmingham apartment on November 27, 1991, while she was asleep. He allegedly demanded money and, after obtaining $80, sexually raped Brown at gunpoint. After shooting her to death, he went back to eat and look for more cash.
For the 1992 murder of 14-year-old Crystal Kendrick, Frazier was given a life term in Michigan.

He was convicted of Brown's murder in 1996 by an Alabama jury that voted 10–2 in favor of the death penalty. He stayed in Michigan until 2011, when the governors of both states consented to his transfer to the execution row in Alabama.

Three nitrogen gas executions were carried out in Alabama last year, making it the first state to do so. In order to cause death by oxygen deprivation, pure nitrogen is administered through a breathing mask.

A last mask check was performed before the execution started at 6:10 p.m. At first, Frazier's hands went in a circle, but soon he became distressed. He raised his legs off the gurney at 6:13 p.m.

Before his breathing decreased to sporadic gasps, he seemed to gasp. The movement stopped at 6:21 p.m. At 6:29 p.m., the chamber curtains closed.


According to Commissioner John Hamm, the nitrogen flow lasted roughly eighteen minutes, and thirteen minutes after the start of the administration, sensors showed no heartbeat.

Frazier's attorneys argued about the speed of the execution process, but a federal judge recently refused to halt it. Convulsions were recorded by media witnesses, such as The Associated Press, at earlier nitrogen executions.


Execution accounts did not show "severe psychological pain or distress" beyond what is normal for executions, the judge decided.