An Alabama death row inmate was executed Thursday evening by nitrogen gas, but not before a Tex-Mex-style last meal and a profane rant directed at the execution staff. Carey Dale Grayson had been on death row for 28 years following the 1994 murder and mutilation of 37-year-old hitchhiker Vickie Lynn Deblieux who was traveling from Chatanooga,

Grayson’s three accomplices managed to escape execution because they were under 18 at the time of Deblieux’s murder

The execution is the 22nd in the U.S. this year and the sixth in Alabama, which has put three of the men to death using nitrogen gas.

Grayson was one of four teenagers convicted of capital murder in the torture, bludgeoning and mutilation of Vickie Lynn Deblieux on Feb. 21, 1994.

Carey Dale Grayson is set to die by nitrogen hypoxia after being convicted of killing 37-year-old hitchhiker Vickie Deblieux in 1994.

Alabama has executed three death row inmates by nitrogen gas this year and is the only US state to have employed the controversial method. While Alabama officials have described nitrogen asphyxiation as the most painless and humane method of execution, critics have likened the practice to torture.

An Alabama prisoner convicted of the 1994 murder of a female hitchhiker is slated to become the third person executed by nitrogen gas

An Alabama man convicted in the 1994 killing of a hitchhiker cursed at the prison warden and made obscene gestures with his hands shortly before he was put to death Thursday evening in the nation’s third execution using nitrogen gas.

Carey Dale Grayson, a 50-year-old Alabama inmate convicted in the 1994 murder of a female hitchhiker, was put to death on Thursday using nitrogen gas.

Alabama has carried out nation's 3rd nitrogen gas execution, putting a man to death for the murder of a hitchhiker