Alabama Executes Murderer Thursday Evening

The state of Alabama carried out its first execution of 2025. Demetrius Frazier was executed last night for the 1991 rape and murder of 41 year old Pauline Brown in her apartment. The sentence was carried out using nitrogen gas hypoxia. The method is a process where pure nitrogen gas, or nitrogen gas at concentrations high enough to be lethal, is inhaled to the point of causing asphyxiation. The method is not without controversy. Advocacy groups have petitioned against it’s use due to the belief by some that it may cause suffering when applied. Alabama is one of only a few states that has approved the method, primarily because ingredients for lethal injection have become harder to come by. Alabama last year became the first state to used nitrogen gas in executions just last year. They followed Oklahoma as the first state to approve the use, but were the first to carry out a sentence using the method.  The practice of using gases though, dates back just over 100 years. In fact, tomorrow, February 8th, will be the 101st anniversary of gas first being used for such. Frazier was the fourth Alabama inmate to have his sentence carried out in this manor.

Frazier had already been convicted of one death at his hands in Michigan. He had been imprisoned there after admitting to murdering 14 Year Old Crystal Kendrick in Detroit. He has since claimed that his confession to that crime was not valid. It was later, when Frazier was in Alabama, he entered the ground floor Birmingham apartment of Brown through a window. He initially stole Ten dollars, but when Brown came in, he held her at gun point. She gave him Eighty Dollars, hoping he would go away, but instead he raped her. He then shot her in the back of the head, killing her.  What drew some attention after the fact, was that Brown when convinced no one had heard him after exiting the apartment, went back in and sat down to have a meal of bananas.

It was in 1992 that Frazier was convicted in Michigan for his first murder. When arrested for that, he admitted to killing Brown in Birmingham. Frazier was convicted of the Michigan murder, and sentenced to life in prison. Michigan does not have the death penalty. This launched a legal battle between the states. Frazier was eventually transferred to Alabama to serve his sentence, which opened him to the death penalty under Alabama law.

Frazier requested and received Taco Bell for his last mean which consisted of a Burrito and Mountain Dew.

Frazier was pronounced dead at Atmore Prison at 6:36 PM.

Govorner Kay Ivey released the following statement:

“In Alabama, we enforce the law. 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.” – Governor Kay Ivey

Attorney General Steve Marshall released to following statement as well:

For more than three decades, the family of Pauline Brown has waited for justice. Tonight, that wait is over. Demetrius Frazier was a monster who brutally took the lives of two innocent woman and left behind a trail of unspeakable violence. For the crimes he committed in Alabama, he was fairly and appropriately punished. 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.

Frazier and supporting activists made last-ditch efforts to transfer him back to Michigan to serve his 4 life sentences there and avoid his death sentence in Alabama. These antics were unsuccessful. 

The Alabama Department of Corrections has now carried out four executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which has proven to be both constitutional and effective.”