Share and Follow
() Two state governments are slated to simultaneously execute inmates Thursday, one of them by the relatively new method of nitrogen gas.
The death penalties are expected to be administered at 6 p.m. Central for convicted murderers Blaine Milam in Texas and Geoffrey Todd West in Alabama.
Texas inmate to be executed for killing toddler
Milam, 35, will receive a lethal injection for the December 2008 torture-murder of his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter, Amora Carson, during what the couple claimed was an “exorcism” to rid the child of a demon in Rusk County. The toddler’s mother, Jesseca Bain Carson, received life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Milam and Carson initially told authorities they had gone to a pawn shop and found the child dead when they returned to their trailer. Milam previously was granted stays of execution in 2019 and 2021.
Alabama moves forward with another nitrogen gas execution
The other death row inmate scheduled to be executed Thursday is West, 50, who was convicted of fatally shooting gas station clerk Margaret Berry during a March 1997 robbery in Etowah County. He has expressed remorse for killing the 33-year-old mother, and one of her sons, Will Berry, has urged Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to halt the execution.
“I forgive this guy, and I don’t want him to die,” Berry told The Associated Press this week. “I don’t want the state to take revenge in my name or my family’s name for my mother.”
If the execution proceeds, West would die by nitrogen hypoxia. The relatively new form of capital punishment has only been administered a handful of times, mostly by Alabama.
The method involves strapping a gas mask to the face and forcing the inmate to breathe pure nitrogen gas, thus depriving them of the oxygen needed to stay alive. Death penalty opponents have said using nitrogen gas is a cruel execution method.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.