An Alabama inmate found guilty of murdering a hitchhiker 30 years ago on Thursday became the third person in America to be executed using nitrogen gas, furthering the ongoing debate about whether the method is an inhumane way to carry out death penalty sentences.

A man convicted in the 1994 killing of a female hitchhiker in Alabama was put to death Thursday evening in the nation’s third execution using nitrogen gas.

It was Alabama's sixth execution for the year and the third in ... bludgeoning death and mutilation of Vickie Lynn DeBlieux on Feb. 21, 1994. The 37-year-old Deblieux was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to visit her mother in Louisiana when ...