ATMORE, Ala. — An Alabama man convicted in the 1994 killing of a hitchhiker cursed at the prison warden and made obscene gestures with his hands shortly before he was put to death Thursday evening in the nation’s third execution using nitrogen gas.

Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was executed at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in southern Alabama. He was one of four teenagers convicted of killing Vickie DeBlieux, 37, as she hitchhiked through the state on the way to her mother’s home in Louisiana. The woman was attacked, beaten and thrown off a cliff.

Alabama began using nitrogen gas earlier this year to carry out some executions. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen.

Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm said the nitrogen flowed for 15 minutes and an electrocardiogram showed Grayson no longer had a heartbeat about 10 minutes after the gas began flowing.

Like two others previously executed by nitrogen, Grayson shook at times before taking a periodic series of gasping breaths.

The victim’s daughter told reporters afterward that her mother had her future stolen from her. But she also spoke out against the decision to execute Grayson and “murdering inmates under the guise of justice.”

The curtains to the execution room were opened shortly after 6 p.m. Strapped to a gurney with a blue-rimmed gas mask on his face, Grayson responded with an obscenity when the warden asked if he had any final words. Prison officials turned off the microphone. Grayson appeared to speak toward the witness room where state officials were present, but his words could not be heard. He raised both middle fingers at the start of the execution.

It was unclear when the gas began flowing. Grayson rocked his head, shook and pulled against the gurney restraints. He clenched his fist and appeared to struggle to try to gesture again. His sheet-wrapped legs lifted off the gurney into the air at 6:14 p.m. He took a periodic series of more than a dozen gasping breaths for several minutes. He appeared to stop breathing at 6:21 p.m., and then the curtains to the viewing room were closed at 6:27 p.m.

Grayson was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m.

DeBlieux’s mutilated body was found at the bottom of a bluff near Odenville, Alabama, on Feb. 26, 1994. She was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother’s home in West Monroe, Louisiana, when the four teens offered her a ride. Prosecutors said the teens took her to a wooded area and attacked and beat her. They returned to mutilate her body.

A medical examiner testified that her face was so fractured that she was identified by an earlier X-ray of her spine. Investigators said the teens were identified as suspects after one of them showed a friend one of DeBlieux’s severed fingers and boasted about the killing.

DeBlieux’s daughter Jodi Haley spoke with reporters at the media center on prison property after the execution. Haley was 12 when her mother was killed, She said her mother had her life and future stolen from her.

“She was unique. She was spontaneous. She was wild. She was funny. She was gorgeous to boot,” Haley said of her mother.

She said Grayson was abused in every possible way in his youth but “society failed this man as a child, and my family suffered because of it.”

“Murdering inmates under the guise of justice needs to stop,” she said, adding that “no one should have the right to take a person’s possibilities, days, and life.”

Gov. Kay Ivey said afterward she was praying for the victim’s loved ones to find closure and healing.

“Some thirty years ago, Vicki DeBlieux’s journey to her mother’s house and ultimately, her life, were horrifically cut short because of Carey Grayson and three other men,” Ivey said in a statement. “She sensed something was wrong, attempted to escape, but instead, was brutally tortured and murdered.”

Grayson’s crimes “were heinous, unimaginable, without an ounce of regard for human life and just unexplainably mean. An execution by nitrogen hypoxia (bears) no comparison to the death and dismemberment Ms. DeBlieux experienced,” she added.

Grayson was the only one of the four teenagers who faced a death sentence since the other teens were under 18 at the time of the killing. Grayson was 19.

The execution was carried out hours after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Grayson’s request for a stay. His final appeals had focused on a call for more scrutiny of the nitrogen gas method. His lawyers argued the execution method causes “conscious suffocation” and that the first two nitrogen executions did not result in swift unconsciousness and death as the state had promised.

Hamm said he thought some of Grayson’s initial movements were “all show” but maintained other movements exhibited by Grayson and the two others executed by nitrogen gas were expected involuntary movements, including the breathing at the end.

No state other than Alabama has used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out a death sentence. In 2018, Alabama became the third state — along with Oklahoma and Mississippi — to authorize the use of nitrogen gas to execute prisoners.

On June 12, it was announced that the Alabama men’s basketball team would be competing in the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas during Thanksgiving week this coming basketball season. The Players Era Festival is the first-ever NIL-based multi-team event for college basketball.

No. 8 Alabama joins No. 7 Houston, No. 24 Rutgers, Notre Dame, San Diego State, No. 14 Creighton, Oregon and No. 23 Texas A&M as the schools participating in the inaugural event. Each team will play two games and the head-to-head record, point differential, points scored and points allowed will all be factored in creating the seeding for a seventh place, fifth place, third place and of course championship game.

Total NIL Activities and Compensation:

The Crimson Tide’s two initial games will be against Houston on Nov. 26 and then Rutgers on Nov. 27.

Who: No. 8 Alabama (4-1, 0-0 SEC) vs. No. 7 Houston (2-1, 0-0 Big 12)

Who: No. 8 Alabama (3-1, 0-0 SEC) vs. No. 24 Rutgers (4-0, 0-0 Big Ten)

When vs. Houston: Tuesday, Nov. 26 at 8 p.m. CT.

When vs. Rutgers: Wednesday, Nov. 27 at 10 p.m. CT

Where (Both Games): MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nev.

Radio (Both Games): Crimson Tide Sports Network (Play-By-Play: Chris Stewart, Color: Bryan Passink). The pregame show will begin one hour prior to tipoff.

TV (Both Games): TBS

Series vs. Houston: Tied 3-3 with the first matchup occurring on Dec. 28, 1956

Series vs. Rutgers: 0-0

Last meeting with Houston: The Crimson Tide outlasted Houston with a 71-65 victory. Future No. 2 overall NBA Draft pick Brandon Miller went 0-of-8 from the field, but future No. 21 overall pick Brandon Clowney saved the day with 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting while also recording team-highs in rebounds (11) and blocks (2).

Last meeting with Rutgers: Never

Last time out, Alabama: Following its first loss of the season on the road against then-No. 13 Purdue, the Crimson Tide brushed it off against No. 25 Illinois on Wednesday night by defeating the Fighting Illini 100-87. Preseason All-American point guard Mark Sears didn’t score a single point but the renowned Alabama depth more than made up for it as forward Grant Nelson tallied 23 points and guards Labaron Philon, Aden Holloway and Latrell Wrightsell Jr. each put up 16-plus points.

Last time out, Houston: Like Alabama, the Cougars also stormed back from its first loss of the season with a dominant 91-45 win over Louisiana. Terrance Arceneaux (14 points), Milos Uzan (13), Mercy Miller (12), Emanuel Sharp (11) and J’Wan Roberts (11) each putting up double figures. Sharp and Miller each logged four steals boosting the team total to 17.

Last time out, Rutgers: The Scarlet Knights extended their undefeated start to the season with a 74-63 win over Merrimack. Rutgers’ top-tier freshmen duo of Ace Bailey (23 points) and Dylan Harper (14) combined for nearly half of the team’s points. They also led in the rebounding category as Bailey grabbed 10 while Harper had eight and Harper’s six assists were also a Rutgers-best.

Kalen DeBoer calls them “gimmie kicks.” The head coach’s philosophy has always been to give his kickers as many opportunities from short-distance attempts early in the season in order to get them in a rhythm and build up their confidence.

That’s the plan anyway. Alabama’s big-play offense prevented that transition for Miami-Ohio transfer Graham Nicholson in his first season with the Crimson Tide this year.

Nicholson, who earned the Lou Groza Award last season, didn’t even attempt a field goal in Alabama’s first two games. He pushed his first attempt wide right from 46 yards out at Wisconsin in Week 3. After hitting a 28-yarder against Georgia two weeks later, he didn’t get another attempt until the Week 8 loss against Tennessee, where he went 1 of 2, coming up short on a 54-yard try before hitting the target from 35 yards out.

Since then Nicholson has been perfect, connecting on two field goals against Missouri as well as one last week against Mercer. Now it seems like the graduate kicker is finally finding his rhythm.

“Getting that first one is hard, and it took him a long time to get that first opportunity,” DeBoer said of Nicholson during his weekly radio show on Wednesday night. “It isn’t his fault. We were just scoring touchdowns and the opportunities didn’t present themselves the same way.

“He has been just steady since Day 1. We see him every day in practice. I think he’s getting more and more comfortable in our stadium in particular.”

DeBoer called the two kicks Nicholson made a Missouri “critical to Alabama’s 34-0 win over the Tigers. The first of which came from a season-long 47 yards out as the kicker helped the Tide put points on the board to cap off the game’s opening possession. From there, Nicholson helped a struggling Alabama offense get some momentum by hitting a 39-yarder to put the Tide up 6-0 late in the second quarter.

“Thought [the 47-yarder] was a big kick for us right there to get three points on the board,” DeBoer said. “And then he came back and did it again.”

While kicking isn’t DeBoer’s expertise, he said he still makes an effort to monitor his kicker’s reps during practice in order to get a good feel of what affects them and what went wrong during misses.

“A kicker might miss a kick in practice, and if you really weren’t paying attention, you might just think it was him,” DeBoer explained. “Well, it might have been the snap or the hold or something else. There’s other moving parts to that part. It might not solely fall on the kicker missing in practice, and you can quickly some thoughts about, ‘Well, he’s not in his groove right now,’ when really there were other factors that played a role in it.”

As for Nicholson, DeBoer believes he’s finally found his rhythm and should be able to return to his award-winning form to close out the season.

“He’s mentally strong,” DeBoer said. “He’s got a lot that he’s done in the past that he goes back to that gives him the confidence he has. You still got a new place and you gotta kind of reprove yourself. He’s done a good job of doing that.”

Last season, Nicholson made 27 of 28 field-goal attempts and 35 of 37 extra-point tries. That included an NCAA-record streak of 25 straight made field goals. Through 10 games at Alabama, he is 5 of 7 on field goals and has made all 48 of his extra-point tries.