Alabama executed Demetrius Terrance Frazier by nitrogen gas on Thursday, making him the fourth inmate in the U.S. to be put to death by the controversial method since Alabama began using it last year.
Frazier, who was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. CT, was on Death Row for the murder of 41-year-old Pauline Brown, a mother of two killed just before Thanksgiving Day in 1991. Brown’s boyfriend found her battered body in her Birmingham, Alabama apartment.
“I want to apologize to the family and friends of Pauline Brown,” Frazier said as part of his last words. “What happened to her should have never happened.”
He ended his statement with: “Detroit strong. I love everyone on Death Row. Let’s go.”
Frazier and his attorneys have been arguing that the use of nitrogen gas violated Frazier’s Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, but the Alabama Attorney General rejected that.
“Demetrius Frazier was a monster who brutally took the lives of two innocent woman and left behind a trail of unspeakable violence,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement. “While nothing can erase the agony he inflicted, I pray that this brings closure to those who loved Pauline and have endured the painfully slow wheels of justice for so many years.”
Here’s what you need to know about the execution, including Frazier’s last words and last meal, and more about the nitrogen gas method.
Alabama inmate Demetrius Terrence Frazier, 52, is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on Feb. 6, 2025 for the robbery, rape and murder of Pauline Brown in 1991.
More about the execution method used on Demetrius Frazier
Frazier was executed by nitrogen hypoxia. When used, the inmate breathes pure nitrogen gas through a mask that displaces the oxygen in their system, depriving them of air.
Once the mask was placed over Frazier’s mouth and nose and the gas began, he moved and opened his fists and then moved his hands in a circular motion, according to one of the execution’s witnesses, Sarah Clifton, a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, part of the USA TODAY Network.
A minute later, Frazier’s breathing appeared to get heavier and he appeared to quiver and twitch. A minute after that he appeared to struggle to breathe and clench his face muscles before his legs tensed and raised a few inches off the gurney, his head lolled to the side, and his arms and fists clenched, Clifton reported. He shuddered and twitched until about eight minutes after the gas began flowing, and all movement appeared to stop a couple minutes later, she observed.
Frazier’s execution comes a little more than a year after Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person in the U.S. to be executed with the method in January 2024.
The Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual advisor for Death Row inmates, was at Smith’s execution and described it as being “horrific,” saying there were “minutes and minutes of thrashing and spitting … his head going up and down, back and forth,” and the “gurney that’s bolted to the floor started shaking.”
Kenneth Eugene Smith is on death row in Alabama and slated to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia in January 2024.
Alabama used the method again in September 2024 with the execution of Alan Eugene Miller and in November 2024 with the execution of Carey Dale Grayson.
Opponents say it’s largely untried and amounts to torture, while proponents − and the state of Alabama − argue otherwise.
“The Alabama Department of Corrections has now carried out four executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which has proven to be both constitutional and effective,” Attorney General Marshall said in a statement Thursday.
Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement after the execution that “in Alabama, we enforce the law.”
“Rapists and murderers are not welcome on our streets, and tonight, justice was carried out for Pauline Brown and her loved ones,” she said. “I pray for her family that all these years later, they can continue healing and have assurance that Demetrius Frazier cannot harm anyone else.”
Demetrius Frazier’s last meal
Frazier’s last meal was burritos, a chicken chalupa, chips and dip, and Mountain Dew, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections.
What was Demetrius Frazier convicted of?
Frazier admitted to police that in the early morning of Nov. 26, 1991, he broke into the apartment of Pauline Brown, stole some money from one of the bedrooms and then found Brown in another bedroom, according to court documents.
Armed with a .22-caliber pistol, Frazier woke Brown up, demanded more money and then raped her at gunpoint. Frazier told police that when Brown refused to stop begging for her life, he shot her in the back of the head.
After confirming Brown was dead, Frazier ate two bananas from her kitchen, left the apartment and threw the gun in a ditch, according to court documents.
Questions about Brown’s killing would go unanswered for about four months, until Frazier was arrested for an unrelated attempted rape and murder in Detroit in March 1992. During an interrogation with Detroit police, Frazier admitted to killing Brown.
A jury sentenced Frazier to death, and he was executed more than 20 years later at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama.
Who was Pauline Brown?
Brown enjoyed spending time with her two daughters and friends, and unwinding with television after a long day at work.
When Brown didn’t show up for work at Bama Foods, where she was a cook for more than 18 years, her coworkers and friends grew worried.
Her boyfriend was also concerned because Brown hadn’t picked him up for work that day like usual and she wasn’t answering his phone calls. When he went to her apartment on Nov. 27, 1991, he found her body inside.
More: Who was Pauline Brown? Alabama woman killed by man set for execution on Thursday
Mary Gaston, a friend who worked with Brown at Bama Foods, told the now-defunct Birmingham Post-Herald that she, Brown and their fellow coworker and friend Maggie Williams were “always together.”
Gardenia Merritt, Brown’s sister-in-law, said she was a “drug-free lady, a good worker,” who enjoyed watching a bit of television after work before retiring to bed.
Brown’s remaining living daughter, Phyllis Denise wished her mother a happy 71st birthday in a Facebook post in 2021. “Happy heavenly birthday to my beautiful mommie Pauline Starks Brown … Luv u mommie.”
Who was Demetrius Fraizer?
Frazier’s childhood was “so rife with neglect, abuse and crushing poverty it rivals the saddest of sad prison stories,” Stephen Cooper, a former public defender who worked with Frazier between 2012 and 2015, said in a column published last month by the Montgomery Advertiser, part of the USA TODAY Network.
Frazier was raised by Carol Frazier, his mother, without paternal support and guidance and he was briefly in the custody of social services, according to Michigan Department of Corrections pre-sentence investigation reports obtained by USA TODAY.
Carol described her son as “hard-headed” and said Frazier frequently snuck out at night to commit crimes, the reports say.
More: Demetrius Frazier, a ‘vicious’ killer, is set to be executed in Alabama. Who is he?
Frazier dropped out of high school but later obtained his GED from the now defunct W.J Maxey Boys Training School in Michigan, according to the reports. The training school was a juvenile correctional facility that served boys and men between the ages of 12 and 21.
In September 1991, two months before Brown’s murder, Frazier broke into a Detroit home armed with a knife, raped the homeowner several times and told her he was doing it as part of a bet, according to court documents.
In early 1992, Frazier was charged with the first-degree murder of 14-year-old Crystal Kendrick, whom he tried to rape and then murdered when she tried to flee, according to media reports. Frazier was serving a life sentence for Crystal’s murder in Michigan before he was transferred to an Alabama facility in 2011.
Contributing: Marty Roney, Sarah Clifton, the Montgomery Advertiser, and Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAY
Greta Cross is a national trending reporter at USA TODAY. Follow her on X and Instagram @gretalcross. Story idea? Email her at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Demetrius Frazier executed in Alabama for woman’s 1991 murder
