Alabama executes Gregory Hunt

Alabama executes a man by nitrogen gas for the beating death of a woman in 1988

An Alabama man convicted of killing a woman in 1988 was put to death Tuesday evening in the nation’s 6th execution by nitrogen gas.

Strapped to a gurney with a blue-rimmed mask covering his entire face, Hunt gave no final words but appeared to give a thumbs-up sign and a peace sign with his fingers.

The gas began flowing sometime after 5:55 p.m., but it was not clear exactly when.

At 5:57 p.m. Hunt briefly shook, gasped and raised his head off the gurney. He let out a moan at about 5:59 p.m. and raised his feet.

He took a series of four or more gasping breaths with long pauses in between, and made no visible movements after 6:05 p.m.

The shaking movements and gasps were similar to previous nitrogen executions in Alabama.

The execution method involves forcing an inmate to breathe pure nitrogen gas, depriving them of the oxygen needed to stay alive.

The state says the movements are expected, but critics say they show that the execution method does not provide a quick death.

'What I saw has been consistent with all the other nitrogen hypoxia executions. There is involuntary body movement,' Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said.

Gregory Hunt was pronounced dead at 6:26 p.m. at a south Alabama prison, authorities said, one of 4 scheduled this week in the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Hunt's request for a stay about three hours before the execution began. Hunt argued that prosecutors misled jurors about the evidence of sexual abuse, a claim the Alabama attorney general's office called meritless.

Hunt declined to have a dinner meal. On the day of his execution, he had a lunch tray that included bologna, black-eyed peas, carrots and fruit punch, prison officials said.

The Rev. Jeff Hood, a death penalty opponent who worked with Hunt, expressed sadness over his execution.

'Greg Hunt was my friend. I am devastated that Alabama saw fit to kill him,' Hood said.

The crime

Hunt was convicted of capital murder for the killing of Karen Lane, who was 32 when she was killed on Aug. 2, 1988, in the Cordova apartment she shared with another woman in Walker County.

Hunt had dated Lane for about a month. Prosecutors said that after becoming enraged with jealousy, he broke into Lane’s apartment and sexually abused her and beat her to death, inflicting 60 injuries on her body. Jurors convicted him in 1990 and recommended a death sentence by an 11-1 vote.

Hunt, who was born in 1960, was among the longest-serving inmates on Alabama’s death row. He told The Associated Press last month that finding religion in prison helped him get “free of my poisons and demons” and that he tried to help other inmates.

“Just trying to be a light in a dark place, trying to tell people if I can change, they can too ... become people of love instead of hate,” he said.

Lane’s sister declined to comment when reached by telephone this week.

But in 2014 at a vigil for crime victims, she said, “The way she was killed is just devastating.”

“It’s hard enough to lose a family member to death, but when it’s this gruesome,” she said.

Hunt acted as his own attorney in a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to halt the execution, arguing that prosecutors misled jurors about the evidence of sexual abuse.

The Alabama attorney general’s office called the claim meritless.

Last year Alabama became the 1st state to carry out an execution with nitrogen gas. The method has now been used in 6 executions — 5 in Alabama and 1 in Louisiana.

Hunt selected nitrogen gas over the other options, lethal injection or the electric chair, before Alabama developed procedures for the method.

— Hunt becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Alabama and the 81st overall since the state resumed capital punishment on April 22, 1983.

— Hunt becomes the 21st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,628th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Source: The Associated Press, MailOnline, Staff, Rick Halperin June 10, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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