Alabama Puts Man Convicted Of Killing 3 To Death In The Country’s Second Nitrogen Gas Execution

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama used nitrogen gas Thursday to execute a man convicted of killing three people in back-to-back workplace shootings, the second time the method that has generated debate about its humaneness has been used in the country

Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. local time at a south Alabama prison. He shook and trembled on the gurney for about two minutes with his body at times pulling against the restraints. That was followed by about six minutes of periodic gulping breaths before he became still.

Miller was convicted of killing three men — Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy and Terry Jarvis — in 1999 and the state had previously attempted to execute him by lethal injection in 2022.

“I didn’t do anything to be in here,” Miller said in his final words that were at times muffled by the blue-rimmed gas mask that covered his face from forehead to chin. However, witnesses at the trial had expressed no doubt about his guilt, describing Miller shooting the three men.

At the execution, Miller also asked his family and friends to “take care” of someone but it was not clear whose name he said.

Miller was one of five inmates put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number that defies a yearslong trend of decline in the use of the death penalty in the U.S.

“Tonight, justice was finally served for these three victims through the execution method elected by the inmate,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. “His acts were not that of insanity, but pure evil. Three families were forever changed by his heinous crimes, and I pray that they can find comfort all these years later.”

Family members of the three victims did not witness the execution and did not issue a