The haunting last words of an Alabama death row inmate who was put to death by using nitrogen gas on Thursday have been revealed.
Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, died at 8:25pm local time at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, authorities confirmed.
In his last words, he said: “Tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards….Thank you for supporting me. Love all of you. I’m leaving with love, peace, and light.”
After the nitrogen gas began to flow, Smith smiled at his family and signed, “I love you.”
Smith was executed by nitrogen hypoxia – the first execution of its kind in the nation – as legal attempts to halt the untested method continued through the final hours.
The convicted murderer was strapped to a gurney and made to breathe nitrogen gas through a mask apparatus, depriving him of oxygen. Witnesses saw him struggle as the gas flowed, with two to four minutes of writhing, then around five minutes of heavy breathing.
READ MORE: Death row inmate Kenneth Smith executed by nitrogen gas in nation first
As a precaution, prison officials gave Smith his last meal of solid food by 10am.
Smith’s spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeff Hood, said his final meal consisted of a Waffle House order: a T-bone steak, hash browns, and scrambled eggs.
Hood said in a statement Thursday afternoon: “He’s terrified at the torture that could come. But he’s also at peace. One of the things he told me is he is finally getting out.”
Smith’s execution was the first attempt to use a new execution method since the 1982 introduction of lethal injection, now the most common execution method in the US.
Hood said: “The eyes of the world are on this impending moral apocalypse. Our prayer is that people will not turn their heads. We simply cannot normalize the suffocation of each other.”
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Smith’s attorneys asked the US Supreme Court to halt the execution to review claims that the new method violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment and deserves more legal scrutiny before it is used on a person.
His attorneys wrote: “There is little research regarding death by nitrogen hypoxia. When the State is considering using a novel form of execution that has never been attempted anywhere, the public has an interest in ensuring the State has researched the method adequately and established procedures to minimize the pain and suffering of the condemned person.”
Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett. Prosecutors said he and the other man were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance.
The victim’s son, Charles Sennett Jr., said in an interview with WAAY-TV that Smith “has to pay for what he’s done.”
The son said: “And some of these people out there say, ‘Well, he doesn’t need to suffer like that.’ Well, he didn’t ask Mama how to suffer? They just did it. They stabbed her — multiple times.”
Some states are looking for new ways to execute people because the drugs used in lethal injections have become difficult to find.
Three states — Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma — have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, but no state has attempted to use the untested method until now.
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