Death of Carey Dale Grayson, 50, marks third time the southern US state has killed someone using controversial method

An Alabama man convicted in the 1994 killing of a hitchhiker cursed at the prison warden and made obscene gestures shortly before he was put to death on Thursday evening in the nation’s third execution using nitrogen gas – as the daughter of his victim spoke out against capital punishment.

Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was executed at the William Holman correctional facility in southern Alabama. He was one of four teenagers convicted of killing Vickie DeBlieux, 37, as she hitchhiked through the state on the way to her mother’s home in Louisiana. The woman was attacked, beaten and thrown off a cliff.