Alabama executes Geoffrey Todd West

Alabama executes man with nitrogen gas for 1997 shooting death of store clerk

An Alabama man convicted of killing a woman during a 1997 gas station robbery was put to death Thursday after apologizing to the family and pleas from the victim’s son to spare his life.

Geoffrey Todd West, 50, was executed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility by nitrogen gas, a method Alabama began using last year. It was 1 of 2 executions scheduled on the night in the United States.

West said “No sir” when asked by the warden if he had final words. Strapped to the gurney with a blue-rimmed gas mask covering his face, he gave a thumbs up in the direction of his attorney, who was seated in a viewing room, as the execution began at about 5:56 p.m.

West's eyes were open as he appeared to gasp and struggle for breath during the first two minutes of the execution. His head rocked to the side, his left fist curled up and he appeared to slightly foam at the mouth.

At about 6:01 he began to take a long series of breaths with frequent pauses before becoming still at about 6:07. He was pronounced dead at 6:22.

In a final statement provided by his attorney, West said: “I have apologized privately to the family of Margaret Parrish Berry, and am humbled by the forgiveness her son, Will, has extended.”

He added that he was baptized in the Catholic Church this year and confirmed Wednesday, and, “I am at peace because I know where I am going and look forward to seeing Mrs. Berry when I get there.”

West was convicted of capital murder in the 1997 killing of Berry, 33. Berry, the mother of two sons, was shot in the back of the head while lying on the floor behind the counter at Harold’s Chevron in Etowah County on March 28, 1997.

Prosecutors said she was killed execution-style to ensure there was no witness to the robbery. Court records state that $250 was taken from a cookie can that held the store’s money.

A jury convicted West of capital murder during a robbery and voted 10-2 to recommend a death sentence, and the judge accepted that recommendation.

West, in an interview, did not deny killing Margaret Berry. He said that at age 50, he struggles to understand what he did at 21. He and his girlfriend were desperate for cash and went to the store where he once worked to rob it.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret it and wish that I could take that back,” West told AP by telephone last week. He said he wants Berry’s family to know he regrets what happened.

“I’m so very sorry for what I’ve taken away from you, and I hope and pray you forgive me,” West said of what he wants to tell Berry’s family.

West in recent weeks had exchanged letters with one of the victim’s sons. West expressed remorse, and Will Berry offered forgiveness.

A plea from victim’s son

Will Berry urged Alabama’s governor to commute West’s sentence to life in prison. He said taking another life will not help his family.

“I forgive him and so does my dad. We don’t want him to die,” Will Berry said of West. On Tuesday he helped deliver a petition to her office asking for commutation of his sentence.

He was 11 when his mother was killed, and he said prosecutors urged the family to support a death sentence. Now a father and grandfather, Will Berry said time and his faith have given him a different perspective. He said West was a troubled young man with a drug-fueled past who made a terrible decision.

“Vengeance isn’t for the state. It’s for the Lord,” Will Berry told The Associated Press.

Berry and West asked to meet ahead of the execution, but the Alabama Department of Corrections denied the request citing security regulations forbidding visits between victims and inmates.

Ivey said in a Sept. 11 letter to Berry that she intended to let the execution go forward. She wrote that she appreciates his belief, but she said Alabama law “imposes death as punishment for the most egregious forms of murder.”

Nitrogen gas

The execution method used to put West to death involved strapping a gas mask to his face and forcing him to breathe pure nitrogen gas, thus depriving the person of the oxygen needed to stay alive.

After state lawmakers authorized nitrogen gas as an execution method in 2018, the Alabama Department of Corrections gave death row prisoners a brief window to choose between that, lethal injection or the electric chair.

West was one several dozen who picked nitrogen then. However, at that time, the state had not yet developed procedures for using it and it was unclear when that would happen.

Alabama became the 1st state to carry out a nitrogen gas execution in 2024. Nationally, the method has now been used in 7 executions: 6 times in Alabama and once in Louisiana.

Lethal injection remains Alabama’s primary method.

West becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Alabama, and the 82nd overall since the state resumed capital punishment on April 22, 1983.

West becomes the 32nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA, and the 1,639th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977, ending a moratorium imposed by the US Supreme Court via its July 2, 1976, Furman v. Georgia decision.

Source: The Associated Press, Staff; Rick Halperin September 25, 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

Comments

Tennessee | Questions Raised About the Doctor Who Was Overseeing Tony Caruthers’ Execution

Mark Fowler, according to a deposition, had not placed a central line in a patient for more than a decade when he attempted to put one in Carruthers Around 11 a.m. Thursday morning in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, a medical doctor stepped in and attempted to place a central IV line in Tony Carruthers’ chest. By that point, the prison staff had spent some 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to insert a backup IV line that would allow them to proceed with the lethal injection. According to Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato, who was in the room, after asking a staff member to attempt inserting a line through Carruthers’ jugular vein, the doctor moved on to the central line, which is identified as the last resort in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol .

EU GSP+ Reform: Will Brussels Finally Enforce Its Own Conditions on Pakistan?

The EU has tightened the rules governing GSP+ trade preferences, but Pakistan’s record raises a harder question: whether Brussels is prepared to suspend market access when a major beneficiary fails to demonstrate sustained compliance with human rights, labour and governance obligations. The European Union has formally adopted revised rules for its Generalised Scheme of Preferences, strengthening the conditions attached to preferential market access for developing countries. The new framework will apply from 1 January 2027 and is intended to tighten monitoring, widen the list of international conventions, and make suspension of benefits easier in cases of serious violations.

Florida executes Richard Knight

Man convicted of killing a woman and her 4-year-old daughter is executed in Florida A Florida man convicted of fatally stabbing his cousin’s girlfriend and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter was put to death Thursday evening, becoming the 7th person executed by the state this year. Richard Knight, 47, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Knight was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the June 2002 killings of Odessia Stephens and her daughter, Hanessia Mullings. The curtain of the death chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6:00 p.m. execution time. Knight was already strapped down with his arms extended and an IV line in place.

Iran executes Esma Zarei in Ardabil Prison after she gave birth in custody

Hengaw – Saturday, May 23, 2026. Iranian authorities have executed Esma Zarei, a 28-year-old Turkish woman from Parsabad in Ardabil Province, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of her husband. She is the sixth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Zarei was executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Ardabil Central Prison. She had been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) after being convicted of her husband’s murder.

Tennessee fails to execute Tony Carruthers after IV difficulties. State won't try again for a year

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee officials on Thursday called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994, after his executioners tried and failed for over an hour to establish an intravenous line. Gov. Bill Lee announced soon afterward that the state would not try again for at least a year. In a written statement, the Tennessee Department of Corrections said medical personnel had quickly established a primary IV line but were unable to find a suitable vein for a backup line as required by the state’s execution protocol. Efforts to insert a central line also failed, and officials called off the execution.

Arizona executes Leroy McGill

Arizona executes inmate who set couple on fire in 'horrific attack' Arizona has executed Leroy McGill for setting 21-year-old Charles Perez and his 24-year-old girlfriend on fire. Perez died the next day and Perez survived with severe burn injuries. Arizona has executed a death row inmate for setting 2 people on fire more than 20 years ago, killing 1 of them and changing the other's life forever. The state executed Leroy McGill, 63, by lethal injection on Wednesday, May 20, for the 2002 murder of 21-year-old Charles Perez. McGill set Perez and his girlfriend on fire after they accused him of theft, court records say. Perez died of his injuries the next day while his girlfriend survived with severe burns.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Florida: The Daily Routine of Death Row Inmates

The breakfast carts rattle through the concrete prison at about 5:30 am and as they approach Death Row the first sounds of morning repeat the last sounds of night - remote controlled locks clanging open and clunking closed, electric gates whirring, heavy metal doors crashing shut, voices wailing, klaxons blaring. A maximum security prison has no soft or delicate sounds. At the end of each corridor of death row cells a guard opens a heavy door of steel bars and a prison trusty pushes a breakfast cart inside. The door closes behind him and when it locks a second door opens and admits the trusty to the wing. He steers his cart along the wing stopping at each cell to pass a tray of powdered eggs and lukewarm grits through a small slot on the bars. Food is prepared by prison staff and transported in insulated carts to the cells. The food carts are full of cockroaches, the food is often undercooked or just rotten and is served on Styrofoam plates with a plastic "spork" - fork/spoon...

Iraq: German schoolgirl, 17, turned jihadi bride escapes death penalty and is jailed for six years

GERMAN Jihadi bride Linda Wenzel has been jailed for six years in Baghdad for her role as an Islamic enforcer with terror group ISIS. Wenzel, 17, who last year sobbed on TV “I have ruined my life,” could have faced the death penalty. German media reported that a German embassy representative in Iraq was in court yesterday to witness her sentencing. She received five years for joining IS and one year for entering Iraq illegally. Wenzel was found in the rubble of IS stronghold Mosul back in the summer of 2017. Charges were laid against her and three other German women captured with her. Schoolgirl Wenzel fled to Turkey then into Syria last year from her hometown of Pulsnitz in eastern Germany after being groomed online by a Chechen IS fighter who she married. He was killed in the savage fighting for Mosul while she was employed by the terror group enforcing the strict Islamic dress code on women in the city. She burst into tears after her capture and said s...

Florida | Jury recommends death for Otto Lenke, judge to make final call

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A St. Lucie County jury recommended the death penalty for Otto Lenke on Thursday in the penalty phase of his first-degree murder trial, though the final decision rests with the judge. Lenke, 66, a former Melbourne police officer and Indian River County firefighter , was convicted earlier this month of first-degree murder and first-degree arson in the Feb. 17, 2021, killing of Richard Benson at Fast Frank’s Custom Cycle Components, Benson’s motorcycle repair shop in Fort Pierce . Prosecutors said Lenke shot Benson multiple times inside the shop, then poured a flammable liquid on him and set him on fire while he was still alive. Surveillance video from the shop captured the attack.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog