Alabama is set to execute Carey Dale Grayson by nitrogen gas hypoxia Thursday evening for a brutal Jefferson County murder. It would be the state’s sixth execution for the year and third in two months.
It would also be only the third nitrogen gas hypoxia execution in the nation, after Alabama conducted the first execution by the then-untried method in January.
Grayson, now 49, was convicted of capital murder along with three other teens in the torture, bludgeoning death and mutilation of Vickie Deblieux on Feb. 21, 1994. The 37-year-old Deblieux was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to visit her mother in Louisiana when the teens picked her up along Interstate 59 near Trussville in Jefferson County, court records show.
The execution is set to begin at 6 p.m. the week before Thanksgiving. The Montgomery Advertiser asked Gov. Kay Ivey if she considered the timing before she set the execution date. “Did Carey Grayson give any consideration to the fact that he robbed Vicki DeBlieux and her family of now 30 Thanksgivings?” Ivey said.