An Alabama man was executed yesterday for a murder committed in 1988, and his final gesture was unsettling, as he was set to die through nitrogen gas.

Authorities confirmed that Gregory Hunt, aged 65, was declared dead at 6:26 p.m. on Tuesday at a southern Alabama prison, marking one of four executions planned in the U.S. this week.

Hunt faced conviction for the capital murder of Karen Lane, who was 32 years old when she was murdered on August 2, 1988, in the Cordova apartment she shared with another individual in Walker County.

Strapped to a gurney with a blue-rimmed mask covering his entire face, Hunt gave no final words but appeared to give a thumbs-up sign and a peace sign with his fingers.

The gas began flowing sometime after 5:55 p.m., but it was not clear exactly when.

At 5:57 p.m. Hunt briefly shook, gasped and raised his head off the gurney. He let out a moan at about 5:59 p.m. and raised his feet. 

He took a series of four or more gasping breaths with long pauses in between, and made no visible movements after 6:05 p.m.

The shaking movements and gasps were similar to previous nitrogen executions in Alabama.

The state says the movements are expected, but critics say they show that the execution method does not provide a quick death. 

‘What I saw has been consistent with all the other nitrogen hypoxia executions. There is involuntary body movement,’ Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said.

Alabama is the first state to have used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out a death sentence, and Hunt’s execution yesterday was sixth in the US by nitrogen gas. 

Alabama first used nitrogen gas to put Kenneth Eugene Smith to death last year, marking the first time a new method had been used in the US since lethal injection was introduced in 1982.

Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma specifically authorize execution by nitrogen hypoxia, according to records compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center. Arkansas was added to the list this year. 

Hunt had dated Lane for about a month. Prosecutors said that after becoming enraged with jealousy, he broke into Lane’s apartment and sexually abused her and beat her to death, inflicting 60 injuries on her body. 

Jurors convicted him in 1990 and recommended a death sentence by an 11-1 vote.

Several of Lane’s relatives witnessed the execution, Hamm said. 

The family said in a statement that the night was not about Hunt’s life but rather the ‘horrific death of Karen Sanders Lane, whose life was so savagely taken from her.’ They added that Hunt showed her no mercy in 1988. 

‘This is also not about closure or victory. This night represents justice and the end of a nightmare that has coursed through our family for 37 years,’ the family said.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall called the execution ‘a long-overdue moment of justice.’

‘Karen was a young woman whose life was stolen in the most brutal and dehumanizing way imaginable,’ Marshall said, adding, ‘Gregory Hunt spent more time on death row than Karen spent alive.’

Hunt was among the longest-serving inmates on Alabama’s death row. 

He told The Associated Press last month that finding religion in prison helped him get ‘free of my poisons and demons’ and that he tried to help other inmates. He led a weekly Bible class since 1998, he said.

‘Just trying to be a light in a dark place, trying to tell people if I can change, they can too … become people of love instead of hate,’ he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Hunt’s request for a stay about three hours before the execution began. Hunt argued that prosecutors misled jurors about the evidence of sexual abuse, a claim the Alabama attorney general’s office called meritless.

Hunt declined to have a dinner meal. On the day of his execution, he had a lunch tray that included bologna, black-eyed peas, carrots and fruit punch, prison officials said.

The Rev. Jeff Hood, a death penalty opponent who worked with Hunt, expressed sadness over his execution.

‘Greg Hunt was my friend. I am devastated that Alabama saw fit to kill him,’ Hood said.

Last year Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen gas. The method has now been used in six executions — five in Alabama and one in Louisiana.

Hunt selected nitrogen over the other options, lethal injection or the electric chair, before Alabama developed procedures for the method.

Hunt’s was one of two executions carried out Tuesday in the country. In Florida, Anthony Wainwright, 54, died by lethal injection for the April 1994 killing of 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart, a nursing student and mother of two young children, in Lake City.

Over recent decades, the number of executions nationally has declined sharply amid legal battles, a shortage of lethal injection drugs and waning public support for capital punishment. That has led a majority of states to either abolish or pause carrying out the death penalty.