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Alabama set to execute a man with nitrogen gas for 1991 murder and rape

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Demetrius Terrence Frazier, 52, was convicted of the 1991 murder of 41-
year-old Pauline Brown.

ATMORE, Ala. — A man convicted of murdering a woman after breaking into 
her apartment is set to be executed Thursday in Alabama in what would be 
the nation’s fourth execution with nitrogen gas.

Demetrius Terrence Frazier, 52, was convicted of the 1991 murder of 41-
year-old Pauline Brown. Prosecutors said Frazier raped and shot her after 
breaking into her Birmingham apartment.

If carried out, Frazier’s execution will be the third in the United States 
in 2025 and the first in Alabama this year.

Alabama became the first state to carry out executions with nitrogen gas 
when three inmates were put to death using the method last year. The 
method 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 had no pending court appeals in the hours leading up to his 
execution. His advocates instead made a plea to the governor in another 
state to intercede. Frazier’s mother and death penalty opponents asked 
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to bring Frazier back to Michigan, where he 
was serving a life sentence for the murder of a 14-year-old girl before he 
was turned over to Alabama’s death row. Michigan does not have the death 
penalty.

“I know my son has changed. Demetrius has repented,” his mother, Carol 
Frazier, wrote in a letter. “Please don’t let Alabama kill my son,” she 
added.

Whitmer has not commented on the request. However, the Michigan attorney 
general’s office wrote in a January court filing that the state did not 
want Frazier back.

“While Michigan takes no position on the imposition of the death penalty 
in this case, Michigan does not seek to return Frazier to a Michigan 
correctional facility,” state attorneys wrote.

Frazier was convicted of separate killings in 1991 in Alabama and in 1992 
in Michigan, but he was convicted in the Michigan case first.

Prosecutors said on Nov. 27, 1991, that Frazier, then 19, broke into 
Brown’s apartment through a window 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. He later returned to the 
apartment to have a snack and look for money, prosecutors said.

Frazier confessed to Brown’s killing in 1992 while in custody in Michigan, 
police said.

He was sentenced to life in prison in Michigan for the 1992 murder of 14-
year-old Crystal Kendrick. 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. All states but two — Alabama and Florida — now require a 
unanimous agreement for 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.

A federal judge last week rejected a request to block Frazier’s execution. 
His attorneys argued the new execution method does not work as quickly as 
the state promised. Media witnesses, including The Associated Press, 
described how those put to death with the method shook on the gurney at 
the start of their executions.

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

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alabama-set-execute-man-nitrogen-gas-
1991-murder-rape-rcna190943

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