An Alabama man convicted of murdering a woman after breaking into her apartment as she slept was put to death Thursday evening in the nation's fourth execution using nitrogen gas, the AP reports. Demetrius Frazier, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:36pm 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 US in 2025, following a lethal injection Wednesday in Texas and another last Friday in South Carolina. In his final words, Frazier apologized to Brown's family and 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 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. Alabama became the first state to conduct nitrogen gas executions, putting three people to death last year with the method.
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