An Alabama inmate convicted of murdering a woman after breaking into her apartment as she slept was put to death Thursday evening in the nation's fourth execution using nitrogen gas. Demetrius Frazier, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. CST at a south Alabama prison for his murder conviction in the 1991 rape and killing of 41-year-old Pauline Brown.
Frazier’s death was the first execution in Alabama this year and the third in the U.S. in 2025, following a lethal injection Wednesday in Texas and another last Friday in South Carolina. Alabama practice of using nitrogen gas to suffocate convicted killers has attracted international press attention and condemnation.
"First of all I want to apologize to the family and friends of Pauline Brown. What happened to Pauline Brown should have never happened," Frazier said. He also criticized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer for what he said was her failure to step in following appeals for him to be returned to serve out a previous life sentence in her state.
"I love everybody on death row. Detroit Strong," he said.
Recently, Frazier's mother and death penalty opponents had appealed to Whitmer to take Frazier back to Michigan to complete his life sentence for the murder of a teenage girl before he was turned over years ago to Alabama'authorities. Michigan does not have the death penalty.
APR newsroom student intern Raven Johnson examined the international reaction to Alabama's use of nitrogen gas for executions with comments from Tamara Bajcic of Serbia. APR first met Bajcic during a talk to a foreign delegation on avoiding news disinformation at the invitation of the U.S. State Department.
“The Radio Free Europe, also the Voice of America in Serbia, Deutsche Valley. So some pro Western media outlets had that news,” added Tamara Bajcic back in November. She’s CEO of a pro-democracy fact-checking service called Demostat. It’s based in Belgrade, Serbia which used to be part of Yugoslavia. APR first met her following an invitation from the U.S. State Department. The news team was asked to speak to a foreign delegation on avoiding news disinformation. Bajcic was part of that group.
“Some domestic very big press media outlet also had that news, but it really did not make a lot of headlines. Here. Serbia had some other problems, so back then in January. So it really, it really, it was in the media as I looked it up, but it really was not that much big news.”
Bajcic says the last time someone was executed was in 1992.
“His name was Johan drosdek, and he was the sentenced to death penalty in 1988 because of rape and murder of a six year old girl. And because of that, he was sentenced to death, and four years later, it was executed, and he was killed by firing squad,” she recalled.
Bajcic adds that Serbians supports the death penalty. Her country agreed to outlaw executions so it could join the European Union.
Prior to the nitrogen gas execution of Demetrius Frazier, Michigan’s attorney general's office wrote in a January court filing that the state did not want Frazier back. It was in 1992 while in custody in Michigan that Frazier confessed to killing Brown, police had said. Michigan's Governor Whitmer told The Detroit News prior to the execution that her predecessor in office, Rick Snyder, "unfortunately" agreed to send Frazier to Alabama where it was in the hands of officials there.
"It's a really tough situation," she told the media outlet before the execution was carried out. "I understand the pleas and concerns. Michigan is not a death penalty state."
Prosecutors said that in 1991, Frazier, then 19, broke into Brown's apartment in Birmingham while she was asleep. Prosecutors said he demanded money and raped Brown at gunpoint after she gave him $80 from her purse. He then shot her in the head, they said, adding he returned later to have a snack and look for money.
Frazier was sentenced to life in prison in Michigan for the 1992 murder of Crystal Kendrick, 14. Then in 1996, an Alabama jury convicted him of murdering Brown and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence. Frazier remained in Michigan custody until 2011 when the then-governors of the two states agreed to move him to Alabama's death row.
Alabama became the first state to carry out executions with nitrogen gas when three inmates were put to death last year using the method. It involves placing a respirator gas mask over the person's face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen.
The execution began at about 6:10 p.m after a corrections officer did a final check of the respirator mask used to administer the nitrogen gas. Frazier moved his outstretched hands in a circular movement for the first minute or so before beginning to grimace and quiver on the gurney. At 6:13 p.m. he raised both legs several inches of the gurney
He appeared to take a few gasping breaths. Then, his breathing slowed to a a series of sporadic breaths. He had no visible movement by 6:21 p.m. The curtains closed to the execution chamber at 6:29 p.m.
Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said the gas flowed for about 18 minutes. He said instruments indicated that Frazier no longer had a heart beat 13 minutes after the gas began flowing.
Hamm said that he believed that Frazier lost consciousness quickly, noting that the swirling motion of the hands had stopped. The commissioner said he believed the other movements, such as the raising of the legs and the periodic breaths were involuntary movements.
A federal judge last week rejected a request to block Frazier's execution. His attorneys had argued the new method does not work as quickly as the state promised. Media witnesses, including The Associated Press, described how those put to death with the method shook on the gurney at the start of their executions.
The judge, however, ruled that the descriptions of the executions did not support a finding that any of the men "experienced severe psychological pain or distress over and above what is inherent in any execution."
Some of Brown's family members witnessed the execution but opted not to make a statement to the media
"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," Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.
