Demetrius Frazier, 52, was executed in Alabama on Thursday for the 1991 murder of Pauline Brown, using nitrogen gas, the fourth such execution in the U.S.

Frazier had broken into Brown’s apartment, raped her, and shot her in the head before returning later to search for more money.

His execution marked Alabama’s first of 2025 and was the third in the U.S. that year.

Frazier, previously sentenced to life for a Michigan murder, was moved to Alabama’s death row in 2011, NBC News has reported.

Despite appeals from his mother and death penalty opponents to have him returned to Michigan, where the death penalty is not legal, his execution proceeded after a federal judge rejected the request.

Written by B.C. Begley