2024-02-17 17:01:55
In March 1988, Kenneth Smith was hired as a hitman to kill 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett.
This Thursday, Kenneth Smith, sentenced to death for a murder in 1988 in Alabama, United States. He died with the nitrogen hypoxia method.
This is the first time in the North American country that an execution has been carried out with the nitrogen gas procedure, marking a precedent.
What is the nitrogen hypoxia run all about?
This is a procedure where hypoxia is achieved (absence of oxygen sufficient in the tissues to maintain bodily functions) using pure nitrogen or in a concentration high enough to cause death. The person inhales it with a mask airtight, dying within minutes.
According to the authorities of the state of Alabama, this method is the “most painless and humane known to man” since it The person quickly reaches unconsciousness.
Why was Kenneth Smith executed twice?
On November 17, 2022, Smith was going to be executed by lethal injection, however, the procedure had to be suspended since those who were administering the substance, They couldn’t find a vein to place the line.
In this way, the execution could not be carried out “due to the time limitations resulting from the delay of judicial proceedings“, William C. Holman stated on that occasion from prison.
“The procedure could not be carried out before the death sentence expired,” they added.
What was Kenneth Smith’s crime?
On March 18, 1988, Kenneth Smith murdered 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett. As the case file reveals, Charles Sennett Sr., Elizabeth’s husband, who was also a pastor at the Westside Church of Christ, hired a man identified as Billy Gray to kill his wife.
Gray, in turn, recruited Smith and John Forrest Parker to help him in the homicide. The objective was collect insurance and get rid of his wife since he had a mistress.
In this way, Smith and Parker stabbed Elizabeth to death and then received thousand dollars each.