A man convicted of murdering a woman after breaking into her apartment as she slept was put to death Thursday in Alabama in the nation’s fourth execution using nitrogen gas. Demetrius Frazier, 52, was executed for the 1991 rape and killing of Pauline Brown, 41. It was the first execution in Alabama this year and the third in the U.S. in 2025, following a lethal injection Wednesday in Texas and another last Friday in South Carolina. “First of all, I want to apologize to the family and friends of Pauline Brown. What happened to Pauline Brown should have never happened,” Frazier said in his final words. He said, “I love everybody on death row. Detroit Strong.” He criticized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for what he called her failure to accept his appeals to serve a previous life sentence in her state. Frazier’s mother and death penalty opponents had pleaded to Whitmer to take Frazier back to his home state of Michigan to complete his life sentence for the murder of a teenage girl. Michigan does not have the death penalty. Police said Frazier confessed to killing Brown in 1992 while in custody in Michigan.
Whitmer said her predecessor, Rick Snyder, “unfortunately” agreed to send Frazier to Alabama and it was in the hands of officials there. Prosecutors said that on Nov. 27, 1991, Frazier, then 19, broke into Brown’s apartment in Birmingham while she was asleep. Prosecutors said he demanded money and raped Brown at gunpoint after she gave him $80 from her purse. He then shot her in the head and returned later to have a snack and look for money. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a post-execution statement that justice was done. “In Alabama, we enforce the law. You don’t come to our state and mess with our citizens and get away with it,” Ivey said. “Rapists and murderers are not welcome on our streets, and tonight, justice was carried out for Pauline Brown and her loved ones.” Frazier was sentenced to life in prison in Michigan for the 1992 murder of Crystal Kendrick, 14. Then in 1996, an Alabama jury convicted him of murdering Brown and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence.