DEATH row killer Jessie Hoffman has been executed with nitrogen gas in a 19 minute ordeal that left him “twitching and jerking”.

The 46-year-old declined to make a final statement in the execution chamber and even declined a final meal.

Hoffman was pronounced dead at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, with authorities revealing that nitrogen gas had flowed for 19 minutes – dubbing it a “flawless execution”.

Witnesses to the horror execution said Hoffman appeared to involuntarily shake or had “some convulsive activity”.

It was the fifth time nitrogen gas was used in the US after four executions by the same method all in Alabama.

Three other executions, by lethal injection, are scheduled this week in Arizona on Wednesday and in Florida and Oklahoma on Thursday.

Hoffman was convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of Mary Molly Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive who was killed in New Orleans.

At the time of the crime, Hoffman was 18 and has since spent much of his adult life at the penitentiary in rural southeast Louisiana, where he was executed Tuesday evening.