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Demetrius Fraser, a “vicious” killer, is ready to be executed in Alabama. Who is he? – USA today

Demetrius Fraser, a “vicious” killer, is ready to be executed in Alabama. Who is he? – USA today


Demetrius Fraser will die of nitrogen gas on Thursday for the robbery, rape and murder of Pauline Brown in 1991. His lawyers claim that the execution method is cruel and unusual.

This story contains details of a disturbing, violent crime.

A killer and a rapist described by a police investigator as the “most delicious man” he has ever encountered is to become a fourth prisoner, made of nitrogen gas in the United States since Alabama began to use the controversial method last year.

Demetrius Terence Fraser, 52, will die of nitrogen gas on Thursday for the robbery, rape and murder of 41-year-old Pauline Brown on November 26, 1991 in Birmingham, Alabama. If the execution moves forward, Fraser will be the first prisoner performed in Alabama this year and the third in the country.

Fraser faces “barbaric, state -channeled and terrible conscious suffocation”, Stephen Cooper, a former federal public defender in Montgomery, Alabama, writes in a column published by Montgomery advertiser. Cooper worked with Frazier between 2012 and 2015 and said he had spent “long hours” in wrestling to spare Frazier from execution.

Fraser and his lawyers claim that the nitrogen gas method is a violation of the defense of the eighth amendment to cruel and unusual punishment, but the Prosecutor General of the State rejected the arguments.

– Mr. Frazier has chosen to be implemented by nitrogen hypoxia in June 2018 and we will honor his request, “the service said. (Fraser could choose either an electrification or lethal injection instead.)

As Fraser’s execution approaches, the USA Today turns back to the crime, who Fraser and his victim were, and what brought him along a path that would end with his own performance.

What was Demetrius Fraser condemned for?

Pauline Brown lived in the Fountain Heights apartment complex in Birmingham with his two elderly daughters, Phyllis Denise Brown and Pamela Denita Brown, the already non-existent Birmingham after Herald, said earlier.

In the early morning of November 26, 1991, two days before Thanksgiving, Fraser admitted to police that he had invaded the apartment, stole some money from one of the bedrooms, and then found Brown in another bedroom, according to court documents.

Armed with a .22 caliber pistol, Fraser woke Brown and asked for more money. Brown gave Fraser $ 80 from his bag.

Fraser told police that he then raped Brown under shooting, during which Brown asks Fraser not to kill her. Fraser told police that when Brown refused to stop praying for her life, he shot her in the back of the head.

Fraser said that “he did not like whining women who pleaded for their lives,” Detroit Monika Childs’ killing detective, who interviewed Fraser, said during her process, according to previous reports of Birmingham post-sherald.

After confirming that Brown was dead, Fraser ate two bananas from the kitchen, left the apartment and threw the gun into a ditch, according to court documents.

The questions about Brown’s murder will remain unanswered for about four months until Fraser was arrested for an unrelated attempt to rape and murder in Detroit in March 1992. During an interrogation with police in Detroit, Fraser admitted that he had killed Braun.

Alabama’s hearing sentenced Fraser for three charges of capital murder and he was sentenced to death.

String of other rapes, accusations of murder

In September 1991, just two months before Brown’s murder, Fraser stormed a home in Detroit, armed with a knife, rapes the homeowner several times and told her that he was doing it as part of the bet, according to court documents.

In early 1992, Fraser was charged with the first-degree murder of 14-year-old Crystal Kendrick, whom he tried to rape and then killed when she tried to escape, according to media reports. Fraser was serving a life sentence for killing Crystal in Michigan before moving to Alabama facility in 2011.

When he was arrested for the Crystal murder in 1992, Fraser was facing 35 hanging crimes, according to reports.

Frazier asks the federal vessel to block the use of nitrogen gas

Alabama authorized the use of nitrogen gas in 2018 and the state performed the first prisoner in the United States during January 2024, using the Kenneth Smith method. The execution took about 22 minutes, during which Smith was reported to have gone confused, shook and gasped for air before losing consciousness, the USA reported earlier. After Smith, Alabama administered two more executions of nitrogen gas in September and November.

Fraser and his lawyers asked a federal judge during a January 28 hearing to block the execution of their nitrogen gas, claiming that the method was a cruel and unusual punishment.

“Something goes wrong,” Fraser’s lawyer Spencer Han said at the hearing, according to the Associated Press. “Every prisoner who is made of nitrogen gas has shown signs of consciousness beyond 40 seconds,” provided by the state.

During the hearing, two anesthesiologists presented competitive evidence of nitrogen gas affects. One claims that the method guarantees a disaster to a person and the other mentioned bodily movements that are reported during and after the use of nitrogen gas do not necessarily show pain.

Who is Demetrius Fraser?

Fraser’s childhood was “so angry with neglect, abuse and crush poverty that he rivals the saddest of the sad stories of prison,” writes the former Fraser’s lawyer, Cooper, the column writes. He has not developed.

Fraser was raised by his mother Carol Fraser, without paternal support and guidance, and was briefly in the arrest of social services, according to the Ministry’s investigation reports received by USA Today.

Carol described his son as “stubborn” and said that Fraser often got out of the house at night to commit crimes, the reports said.

Fraser dropped out of high school, but later received his GED from the already non -existent WJ Maxey Boys Training School in Michigan, according to reports. The training school was a minor correctional establishment, serving boys and men between the ages of 12 and 21.

Fraser was accused of being a minor by carrying a hidden weapon and breach of probation for breaking and entering and breaching probation for carrying a hidden weapon, according to reports. Frazier was set up for the first two violations and is committed to social accommodation services for the latter.

Frazier known for the aggressive behavior in the courtroom

During the trial of his murder case, Fraser was known by court staff and jurors as aggressive.

According to court documents, Fraser threw a pen in the jury box, damn in the majority white jury as a racist (Fraser is black), accused one of his conspiracy lawyers with prosecutors, and rebelled against the judge’s orders.

For a period of time, Frazier was even removed from the courtroom, forced to monitor his test from a small room associated with the courtroom to avoid further interruptions, Birmingham had previously reported after Herald.

During his process in Michigan for the murder of Crystal Kendrick, Fraser struck an assistant prosecutor in the face, which led to a slight turmoil, The Detroit Free Press reported earlier.

The newspaper reports that Kenneth Brashenhan, the Detroit investigator, which Fraser has recognized the murder of Brown called Fraser “the most delicious man” he has ever met.

Frazier, lawyers are looking for a transfer back to Michigan

Fraser is to death in Alabama for the murder of Brown, but he and his lawyers are struggling to transfer him back to Michigan, where the death penalty is illegal.

In 2011, the governors of Michigan and Alabama concluded an enforcement agreement to refuse Fraser in Alabama until the end of his sentence in Alabama.

In a lawsuit, the Ministry of Correction in Michigan said the state “did not seek to return Fraser to the Michigan correctional facility.”

Contribution: Marty Ronnie, Montgomery Advertiser

Greta Cross is a national trendy reporter at USA Today. Follow it on X and Instagram @gretalcross. An idea of ​​the story? Send her an email at [email protected].

This story was updated to add video.

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