‘Let’s go’: Alabama uses nitrogen gas to execute man for 1991 murder

ATMORE, Ala. — Alabama executed a man on Thursday who was convicted in the 1991 rape, robbery and murder of a Birmingham woman, becoming the fourth person put to death by nitrogen gas.

Demetrius Terrence Frazier, 52, was executed at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, AL.com reported. It was Alabama’s first execution of 2025; the state led the nation in executions with six in 2024.

He was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. CT. It was the third execution in the U.S. this year, following a Feb. 5 execution by lethal injection in Texas and one on Jan. 31 in South Carolina, according to The Associated Press.

Frazier was convicted for the murder and rape of 41-year-old Pauline Brown.

“First of all, I want to apologize to the family and friends of Pauline Brown,” Frazier said in his final words before his execution. “What happened to her should have never happened.

“Detroit strong. I love everyone on death row. Let’s go.”

Frazier had been in the legal custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections, a state where the death penalty was outlawed in 1847, the Montgomery Advertiser reported. He was transferred to Alabama under an arrangement made in 2011, according to the newspaper.

“In Alabama, we enforce the law,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. “You don’t come to our state and mess with our citizens and get away with it. Rapists and murderers are not welcome on our streets, and tonight, justice was carried out for Pauline Brown and her loved ones. I pray for her family that all these years later, they can continue healing and have assurance that Demetrius Frazier cannot harm anyone else.”

Authorities said that Frazier was 19 when he broke into Brown’s apartment on Nov. 27, 1991, stealing cash and raping her at gunpoint before killing her, the Advertiser reported. He had also been convicted in Michigan for the murder of a 14-year-old girl, the newspaper reported.

Before being transferred to Alabama, Frazier was serving multiple life sentences in Michigan for sex crimes and the murder of Crystal Kendrick. Frazier was arrested in March 1992 for the teen’s death and was sentenced to life in prison in 1993, the Advertiser reported.

In 1996, an Alabama jury convicted Frazier of killing Brown and recommended by a 10-2 vote that he receive a death sentence, the AP reported.

Frazier’s attorneys argued that the transfer to Alabama was illegal and that he should have been serving his sentence in Michigan, AL.com reported.

Frazier had hoped that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer would step in and halt the execution, but the governor told The Detroit News that the case was out of her hands.

“It’s a really tough situation,” Whitmer told the newspaper “I understand the pleas and concerns. Michigan is not a death penalty state.”

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