Alabama puts man to death for a 1991 murder in the nation's fourth execution using nitrogen gas

[February 07, 2025]  By KIM CHANDLER

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An man convicted of murdering a woman after breaking into her apartment as she slept was put to death Thursday evening in Alabama in the nation’s fourth execution using nitrogen gas.

Demetrius Frazier, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. at a south Alabama prison for his murder conviction in the 1991 rape and killing of Pauline Brown, 41. It was the first execution in Alabama this year and the third in the U.S. in 2025, following a lethal injection Wednesday in Texas and another last Friday in South Carolina.

“First of all, I want to apologize to the family and friends of Pauline Brown. What happened to Pauline Brown should have never happened,” Frazier said in his final words. He finished by saying, “I love everybody on death row. Detroit Strong.”

Frazier in his final words also criticized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for what he called her failure to step in following appeals for him to be returned to serve out a previous life sentence in her state.

Recently, Frazier’s mother and death penalty opponents had pleaded to Whitmer to take Frazier back to his home state of Michigan to complete his life sentence for the murder of a teenage girl before he was turned over years ago to Alabama authorities. Michigan does not have the death penalty. Police had said Frazier confessed to killing Brown in 1992 while in custody in Michigan.

Whitmer told The Detroit News before the execution that her predecessor, Rick Snyder, “unfortunately” agreed to send Frazier to Alabama and it was in the hands of officials there.

“It’s a really tough situation,” she told the media outlet. “I understand the pleas and concerns. Michigan is not a death penalty state.”

Prosecutors said that on Nov. 27, 1991, Frazier, then 19, broke into Brown’s apartment in Birmingham while she was asleep. Prosecutors said he demanded money and raped Brown at gunpoint after she gave him $80 from her purse. He then shot her in the head and returned later to have a snack and look for money, they said.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a post-execution statement that justice was done.

“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."

Frazier was sentenced to life in prison in Michigan for the 1992 murder of Crystal Kendrick, 14. Then in 1996, an Alabama jury convicted him of murdering Brown and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence. Frazier remained in Michigan custody until 2011 when the then-governors of the two states agreed to move him to Alabama’s death row. Frazier suggested in his final statement that his confession to the killing of the Michigan girl was false.

Michigan resident Beverly Leaf stands in solidarity with Carol Frazier, mother of Demetrius Frazier, as she pleads publicly Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, in Lansing, Mich., to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to bring home her son Demetrius, a Detroit man convicted of rape and a separate murder of a 14-year-old in the early 1990s, who was serving a life sentence when he was charged with another murder in Alabama and is scheduled to be executed there Feb. 6. (Jake May/MLive.com/The Flint Journal via AP)

Alabama became the first state to conduct nitrogen gas executions, putting three people to death last year with the method. It involves placing a respirator gas mask over the person’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen. Frazier, like the first three people to be executed by the method, shook or quivered on the gurney, although to a lesser degree than the others.

Frazier was strapped to a gurney with a blue-rimmed gas mask covering his entire face. The execution began at about 6:10 p.m. after a corrections officer did a final check of the mask.

Frazier moved his outstretched palms in a swirling circular movement for the first minute or two. At 6:12 p.m., he stopped circling his hands. He appeared to grimace, quiver on the gurney and take a gasping breath. A minute later, he raised both legs several inches off the gurney and then lowered them.

His breathing slowed at 6:14 p.m. to a series of sporadic breaths. He had no visible movement by about 6:21 p.m. The curtains to the execution chamber closed at 6:29 p.m.

Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said afterward that the gas flowed for about 18 minutes and that instruments indicated Frazier no longer had a heartbeat 13 minutes after the gas began.

Hamm said he believed that Frazier lost consciousness quickly. He said he believed other movements, including the raising of the legs and periodic breaths, were involuntary.

A federal judge last week refused to block the execution. Defense attorneys had argued the new method does not work as quickly as the state promised. Media witnesses, including The Associated Press, previously described how those put to death with the method shook on the gurney at the start of their executions.

The judge, however, ruled that the descriptions of the executions did not support a finding that any of the men “experienced severe psychological pain or distress over and above what is inherent in any execution.”

Abraham Bonowitz of Death Penalty Action said the method of execution is “experimental gas suffocation.” He said it needs more scrutiny in the federal courts before Alabama uses it to carry out another execution.

Some of Brown’s family members witnessed the execution but declined to make a statement to the media.

Hours ahead of his execution, Frazier visited with his mother, sister and legal team. He had a final meal from Taco Bell that included burritos and a Mountain Dew soft drink.

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