() Two state governments are slated to simultaneously execute inmates Thursday, one of them by the relatively new method of nitrogen gas.
The executions are set for 6 p.m. Central for Blaine Milam and Geoffrey Todd West, who have been convicted of murder, in Texas and Alabama, respectively.
Texas inmate to be executed for killing toddler
Milam, age 35, is facing a lethal injection for the brutal murder of his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter, Amora Carson, in December 2008. The crime was part of an alleged “exorcism” intended to free the child from a demon in Rusk County. The toddler’s mother, Jesseca Bain Carson, is serving a life sentence without parole.
Initially, Milam and Carson informed law enforcement that they had returned from a pawn shop to find the child deceased in their trailer. Milam’s execution had been postponed previously in 2019 and 2021.
Alabama moves forward with another nitrogen gas execution
On the same day, West, 50, is scheduled for execution after being found guilty of shooting gas station clerk Margaret Berry to death in a robbery in Etowah County in March 1997. He has expressed regret for the death of the 33-year-old mother, and her son, Will Berry, has appealed to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to stop the execution.
“I forgive this man, and I do not wish for him to die,” Berry stated to the Associated Press this week. “I do not want the state to seek retribution on behalf of me or my family for my mother.”
If the execution moves forward, West would be executed using nitrogen hypoxia, a relatively new method that Alabama has seldom used for capital punishment.
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.
