Post by Graveyardbride on Jan 28, 2024 20:39:08 GMT -5
Alabama Carries out Nation’s First Nitrogen Gas Execution
On the night of Thursday, January 25, following a last-minute appeal, the state of Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, by the administration of nitrogen gas. The convicted killer, who slaughtered the wife of a minister in a murder-for-hire scheme, was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma are the only states, thus far, that have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution.
The process began at 7:53 p.m. and the nitrogen flowed for 15 minutes. Some witnesses claimed Smith writhed and “shook violently” for approximately two minutes, followed by five minutes of heavy breathing. The mask remained on his face for an additional five minutes after he flatlined.
In his final moments, the condemned murderer said, “Tonight Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward. ... I’m leaving with love, peace and light. Thank you for supporting me. Love all of you.”
Opponents of the death penalty declared the use of nitrogen, which deprives an individual of oxygen, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, and in petitions to save his life, Smith’s attorneys argued, there was “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.” Nonetheless, the U.S. Supreme Court failed to stay the proceedings.
Smith’s execution was initially scheduled to take place in November of 2020, however, Alabama’s execution team was unable to connect the intravenous lines before the expiration of the execution warrant. Thereafter, the state agreed not to pursue another execution by lethal injection and instead would try nitrogen hypoxia. This decision angered many, including the Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual advisor, who declared: “If these are people who botched three lethal injections, can you imagine that they are going to be the first person to use nitrogen hypoxia and do so successfully? This would be like asking my 8-year-old son to play one-on-one with LeBron James.”
Smith was sentenced to death for the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth “Liz” Sennett in Colbert County. He confessed to being one of two men recruited by Billy Gray Williams and paid $1,000 each to kill the 44-year-old homemaker. Williams was recruited by the woman’s husband, the Reverend Charles Sennett, who borrowed $3,000 from his mistress, Doris Tidwell, a member of his congregation, ostensibly to pay a bank loan.
On March 18, 1988, Rev. Sennett called an emergency service at the Westside Church of Christ in Sheffield where he was pastor, and told those present he had returned to his home on Coon Dog Cemetery Road to find his badly injured wife lying in a pool of blood. It was later revealed that Mrs. Sennett (above) had been stabbed and beaten with a heavy fire poker. She died shortly after arriving at the hospital of severe wounds to the face, scalp, neck and chest. According to deputies, Sennett acted oddly when he learned emergency medical technicians found a pulse, an indication his wife might live.
Early in the investigation, Sennett was informed he was a suspect in his wife’s death, and during questioning, he admitted to being in debt and having an affair. On March 25, 1988, the minister was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. However, there were those who believed he was shot by someone else, and others admitted it was odd that a sociopath, who engineered the murder of the mother of his two sons, would take his own life.
Williams died in prison while serving a life sentence, and Smith’s accomplice, John Forest Parker, was executed in 2010. Parker’s execution revived questions concerning Sennett’s suicide, many of which stemmed from The Drive-By Truckers’ song “The Fireplace Poker”:
The Reverend had his wife done in by a guy I knew in high school.
He and a friend should do her in and make it look like a robbery.
“Here’s money son, go buy a gun and shoot her in the head.
No one who dies, testifies, make sure that she is dead.”
The heathens were paid a thousand bucks to eliminate someone,
Plus they were paid five hundred more to get themselves a gun.
The guy I knew had a hunting knife, “Why bother with a gun?
She’ll still be dead, why sweat details, as long as it gets done.”
The Bible said that Jesus bled for the sins of the rest of us,
The Reverend has his wife done in for fifteen hundred bucks.
They knocked upon the door and said their car broke down,
And asked if they could use the phone for a ride back into town.
They stabbed her several times and left her there for dead,
Bleeding and crying out and gasping for breath,
And they went out the very next night and bragged about it.
The Reverend came home from work and found the Mrs. dying.
Life was falling from her grasp but still she lay there trying.
No one will ever know what she told him or know what he told her,
‘Cause the Reverend did his wife in, fifteen whacks, fireplace poker.
The headlines screamed out “Brutal Murder, small town preacher’s wife.”
The crime rocked all of Colbert County as each new fact came to light.
It seems the Preacher had a girl he counseled on the side,
Now the shit was coming down and she was scared to lie.
The preacher came home from the funeral and found policemen waiting.
The heathens, it seems, got coked up and drunk and did a lot of communicating.
Life is cheap for a couple of creeps but this here is the smoker,
Their prints were found all around the room but not on the fireplace poker.
The Preacher’s son brought his father home and followed him inside.
Shots rang out in the Tuscumbia night. Was he alone when he died?
Don't call the son for questioning, that bullet was deserved.
Better call it suicide, justice has been served.
Better call it suicide, justice has been served.
Charles and Liz Sennett are buried side-by-side at the Dempsey Cemetery in Red Bay, Franklin County, Alabama.
Sources: Louis Casiano, Fox News, January 25, 2024; Kim Chandler, The Associated Press, January 26, 2024; Bevan Hurley, The Independent, December 13, 2023; Landon Mion, Fox News, August 27, 2023; Kent Faulk, Al.com, November 17, 2022; Shoals Crime, September 4, 2012; Kenneth Eugene Smith v. State of Alabama, CR-89-1290, Criminal Court of Appeals of Alabama, and Death Penalty Information Center.
