Overview
- Demetrius Frazier, 52, was executed in Alabama for the 1991 murder and assault of Pauline Brown, a crime he confessed to in 1992.
- Frazier was also serving a life sentence in Michigan for the murder of a 14-year-old girl before being transferred to Alabama in 2011 to face the death penalty.
- The execution marks the fourth use of nitrogen gas, a method introduced in Alabama last year and criticized by experts as causing conscious suffocation.
- Frazier’s appeals to delay the execution and challenge the nitrogen gas method were denied by courts.
- Human rights advocates and Fraziers's family had unsuccessfully urged Michigan officials to intervene, as the state does not allow the death penalty.