A Select Few Witnessed Alabama’s Nitrogen Execution. This Is What They Saw.

When Alabama conducted the first known execution using nitrogen gas last week, the world was watching — in a figurative sense.

Only a small group of witnesses actually watched Kenneth Smith die on a gurney in an execution chamber in rural Alabama, an execution that state officials described as a model for other states looking for alternatives to lethal injection.

The witnesses offered a range of descriptions on what exactly occurred in the 22 minutes during which curtains were drawn back on the death chamber — allowing them to watch as a man, strapped to a gurney, struggled through the last minutes of his life.

Mr. Smith was one of three men convicted of murder in the 1988 stabbing death of Elizabeth Sennett, whose husband had hired the men to kill her. Mr. Smith had already survived one failed execution, in November 2022, when executioners spent hours trying to access a vein to inject him with lethal drugs.

He was “terrified” of the nitrogen execution, according to a man who spent time with him in recent months as a spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood.

Lawyers for the state had asserted in court papers that the use of nitrogen gas, pumped into a mask, would render Mr. Smith unconscious within seconds and then kill him. But a week after the execution, most witnesses who have spoken publicly said Mr. Smith remained conscious for several minutes, and many described it as a profoundly disturbing event.