Paid $1,000 to kill a pastor’s wife 35 years ago, Kenneth Eugene Smith is now the first inmate to face suffocation by being forced to inhale the gas
Kenneth Eugene Smith should not be alive to tell his story. Ten months ago he was strapped to a gurney in the death chamber at Alabama’s Holman Correctional Facility. An intravenous line was inserted into his left arm to pump him full of deadly chemicals. Later, he claims, his face was covered and a man with a huge syringe stabbed him repeatedly in the chest in an unsuccessful search for a usable vein. Eventually, four hours after Smith entered the room, his executioners gave up trying to kill him.
But the state of Alabama has not admitted defeat. Smith, 58, is now facing a fresh attempt to end his life with a controversial method that has never been used before: forcing the prisoner to inhale pure nitrogen.
