US state of Alabama carries out third execution by nitrogen gas

Carey Grayson was executed using controversial method after being convicted of the 1994 murder of a hitchhiker.

A man convicted of murdering a hitchhiker 30 years ago has become the third person in the United States to be executed by nitrogen gas.

Carey Grayson, 50, was executed in Alabama on Thursday after the US Supreme Court declined a request for a stay on the grounds that asphyxiation by nitrogen gas constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Grayson was sentenced to death over the 1994 torture, bludgeoning and mutilation of Vickie Lynn Deblieux, a hitchhiker who was travelling to her mother’s home in Louisiana.

Deblieux’s mutilated body was found with 180 stab wounds, one of her lungs removed and her fingers and thumbs cut off.

“Tonight, justice has been served,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement.