Sam Amico
Alabama convicted murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person in the world to be put to death via nitrogen hypoxia, with his execution being carried out on Thursday.
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Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm told reporters that the execution began at 7:53 p.m., and the nitrogen mask was kept on Smith for about five minutes after he flatlined.
Smith reportedly made an “I love you sign” in sign language with his final words as follows:
“Tonight Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward. I’m leaving with love, peace and light. Thank you for supporting me. Love all of you.”
Smith “appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney for at least two minutes at the start of the execution,” one reporter noted, before asking Hamm if that was “expected” or an indication of “suffering.”
“It appeared that, one, Smith was holding his breath for as long as he could,” Hamm answered. “And then there’s also information out there that he struggled against his restraints a little bit, but there’s some involuntary movement and some angled breathing. So that was all expected and is in the side effects that we’ve seen, researched, with nitrogen hypoxia.”
Per CBS News:
“Smith was accused of being a hitman and was sentenced to death following his conviction in the 1989 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a preacher’s wife, in northwestern Alabama’s Colbert County.
“Prosecutors said in 1988 that Smith and John Forrest Parker each received $1,000 to carry out the slaying on behalf of Elizabeth’s husband, Rev. Charles Sennett, Sr., the pastor of the Westside Church of Christ in the city of Sheffield.
“The pastor had been having an affair and found himself in significant debt before taking out a large life insurance policy on his wife, authorities said. Sennett then sought to collect the money by having his wife killed. Sennett committed suicide one week after his wife’s murder, once the investigation got underway and authorities began to consider him as a suspect, according to court documents.”
Alabama is one of three states that allows nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative to lethal injection and more traditional capital punishment methods. Oklahoma and Mississippi are the others. The method of his execution came with plenty of controversy, as detailed by CBS News.
