Alabama sets nitrogen death execution date for Carey Grayson in brutal 1994 murder
Alabama plans to carry out an execution in November for a brutal slaying that happened 30 years ago.
A press release from Gov. Kay Ivey announced that Carey Dale Grayson will be put to death sometime between 12 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 21, and 6 a.m. Friday, Nov. 22.
Grayson, 49, will be executed by suffocation on nitrogen gas pumped through a gas mask. It will be the third nitrogen execution set for this year, and the fourth in all types of executions.
The governor also said she has no plans to grant clemency in the case, but retains her power to do so if she changes her mind.
Grayson was convicted with three other men for the Feb. 22, 1994 slaying of Vicki Lynn DeBlieux.
DeBlieux was kidnapped while hitchhiking. She accepted a ride from Grayson, Kenny Loggins, Trace Duncan, and Louis Mangione on the Trussville exit of Interstate 59 on Feb. 22, 1994.
DeBlieux, 37, was found dead on Feb. 26, 1994, at the bottom of a cliff on Bald Rock Mountain in St. Clair County. Her body was nude and dismembered.
Court records show after picking up the woman, the teens took her to an abandoned area near Medical Center East in Birmingham, where they all drank. At some point, the teens attacked and killed DeBlieux, drove her body to St. Clair County, then tossed her body and luggage off the cliff.
According to testimony in the teens’ 1996 trials, Mangione went home while the other three returned to the scene and mutilated her body. They stabbed DeBlieux’s body more than 180 times, cut open her chest cavity, severed her fingers, and more. All of the bones in DeBlieux’s face and head were broken, and all but one tooth was missing.
She was identified by an old X-ray of her spine.
Her cause of death was later found to be a result of blunt force trauma to her head and possible asphyxiation. Most of the wounds occurred after DeBlieux’s death, according to the coroner’s report.
The teens later gave a finger to Mangione, who showed it to other friends who then contacted police.
Grayson was 19 at the time of the slaying. Mangione was 16, while Loggins and Duncan were both 17.
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Mike McCormick sentenced Grayson, Loggins and Duncan to death. He sentenced Mangione to life in prison without parole. Loggins and Duncan had their sentences changed to life in prison after the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says juveniles (17 or younger) can’t be sentenced to death.
Later, those two men had re-sentencing hearings for a judge to determine if they should ever be eligible for parole. Duncan will be eligible for parole in 2029. Loggins was not given the chance of parole. Mangione was also made eligible for parole in 2029 after an appeal.
Currently, Grayson’s lawyers from the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama are fighting for his life in court. In a lawsuit filed earlier this summer, Grayson’s team said the state’s nitrogen execution process “does not have sufficient safeguards to prevent conscious suffocation from happening,” and violates the Eighth Amendment.