ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama used nitrogen gas Thursday to execute a man convicted of killing three people in back-to-back workplace shootings, the second time the method that has generated debate about its humaneness has been used in the country.
Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. local time at a south Alabama prison. He shook and trembled on the gurney for about two minutes with his body at times pulling against the restraints. That was followed by about six minutes of periodic gulping breaths before he became still.
Miller was convicted of killing three men — Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy and Terry Jarvis — in 1999 and the state had previously attempted to execute him by lethal injection in 2022.
“I didn’t do anything to be in here,” Miller said in his final words that were at times muffled by the blue-rimmed gas mask that covered his face from forehead to chin. However, witnesses at the trial had expressed no doubt about his guilt, describing Miller shooting the three men.
At the execution, Miller also asked his family and friends to “take care” of someone but it was not clear whose name he said.