A death row inmate committed a vile act before he was executed for a murder conviction.
Carey Dale Grayson showed no remorse for the brutal murder of Vickie DeBlieux as he was taken to the execution chamber at William C Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama.
Grayson - along with Kenny Loggins, Trace Duncan, and Louis Mangione - was convicted of killing the hitchhiking mom, who was on the way to her mother's home in West Monroe, Louisiana, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, back in February 1994.
At the time, all four perpetrators were teenagers who had picked up DeBlieux and taken her to a wooded area in Bald Mountain where they beat her mercilessly. She died after Grayson and another teen stepped on her throat.
According to court records, the group proceeded to throw her body from a cliff and later returned to the area to mutilate her corpse. They cut the victim's body at least 180 times, cutting off her fingers and removing a portion of her lungs, court records revealed.
Four days after the attack, a group of rock climbers discovered DeBlieux's body and alerted authorities.
An investigation into the matter led the police to the four boys after reports that one of them had been bragging about the killing, even going as far as to show one of DeBlieux's fingers to someone.
They later learned that Grayson's girlfriend had also found him and his friends sleeping in a truck the night after they mutilated Deblieux's corpse.
She recalled them being covered in dirt and blood, but Grayson lied and said the blood had come from a dog.
When doing an autopsy to identify the victim, a medical examiner reported that the killers had fractured her face so badly that she was identified by an earlier X-ray of her spine.
All four of the boys were charged with capital murder, but while everyone else's sentences were reduced due to the fact that they were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime, Grayson's sentence remained because he was 19.
Thirty years later Grayson showed no remorse as he was preparing to be executed by the state late last month.
Asked if he had any final words, Carey Dale Grayson swore at Terry Raybon, a warden at the facility in Alabama, prompting prison officials to turn off the microphone.
"...For you, you need to f*** off" he said, according to Alabama-based AL.com, which also noted that the rest of his statement "went unheard" by witnesses.
As per Sky News, Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q Hamm later told reporters: "He [Grayson] has cursed out most of our employees tonight, so we were not going to give him the opportunity to spew that profanity."
In a defiant final act before nitrogen gas started entering his body via a breathing mask, he raised both of his middle fingers.
The outlet also reported that the 50-year-old shook at times and took a series of gasping breaths while pulling on the restraining straps of the gurney he was placed on.
Hamm confirmed that Grayson died 10 minutes after the gas started flowing, stopping breathing at around 6.21PM, before being officially pronounced dead at 6.33PM.
In the wake of the execution, DeBlieux's daughter, who was only 12 at the time of her mother's murder, spoke out against the use of capital punishment stating: "Murdering inmates under the guise of justice needs to stop.
She added that "no one should have the right to take a person's possibilities, days, and life."
In a statement, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said: "My prayer for Vickie’s family is that they can find solace in the state of Alabama finally serving justice for their heart-breaking loss. And my hope is that one day it will not take three decades to provide justice for other victims of violent crimes."
Grayson becomes the third person to be executed via nitrogen hypoxia in the US.