The sixth nitrogen gas execution in the US is set for Tuesday in Alabama for a man found guilty of beating a woman to death about 37 years ago. Gregory Hunt will be executed at a prison in south Alabama on Tuesday night. According to court documents, Hunt was found guilty of killing Karen Lane, whom he had been seeing for around a month.
Four executions in the US were planned for this week, including the one in Alabama. There are also plans for executions in South Carolina and Florida. The state attorney general is trying to have a temporary stay for an execution in Oklahoma lifted after a judge in that state imposed one on Monday.
On August 2, 1988, Lane, then 32, was killed in the Cordova apartment where she lived with a lady who was Hunt’s cousin. According to the prosecution, Hunt sexually assaulted her before breaking into her apartment and killing her. According to testimony from a doctor who conducted an autopsy, she died from blunt force trauma, and Lane had about 60 injuries total, including 20 to the head.
On June 19, 1990, a jury convicted Hunt of burglary and capital murder while sexually abusing a victim. By a vote of 11-1, the jury recommended that he be given the death penalty, which the judge did.
Hunt filed his own final plea for a stay of execution, arguing that the prosecution misled jurors about the evidence of sexual abuse. The crime was escalated to a capital offense due to the element of sexual abuse.
Hunt, representing himself, said in a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court that a prosecutor informed jurors that there was cervical mucus on a broomstick next to Hunt’s body. However, due to an earlier surgery, the sufferer did not have a cervix. Even if the prosecution made a mistake in that statement, the conviction would still stand, according to the Alabama attorney general’s office, which deemed the claim without merit.
AL plans to execute #GregoryHunt on June 10 using nitrogen gas, a method shown to be agonizing.
This is cruel, unusual and unconstitutional. Please don’t remain silent, call @GovernorKayIvey now to demand a stop to this inhumane execution: (334) 242-7100#StopExecutionsAlabama pic.twitter.com/OpPjfKi6Fj— Karine Omry (@KarineOmry) June 5, 2025
Speaking over the phone from prison last month, Hunt insisted he did not sexually abuse her but did not deny killing Lane. He also said that his time in prison had transformed him. Hunt stated, “Karen didn’t deserve what happened to her.” Hunt claimed that he was envious when he spotted Lane in a car with another man because he had been drinking and using drugs the night of the crime.
“You have your come-to-Jesus moment. Of course, after the fact, you can’t believe what has happened. You can’t believe you were part of it and did it,” Hunt said. Born in 1960 and admitted to death row in 1990, Hunt is currently one of the death row inmates with the longest tenure in Alabama. He said that prison served as his mental health “hospital.” He said that he has been teaching a Bible class with at least twenty prisoners since 1988.
“Just trying to be a light in a dark place, trying to tell people if I can change, they can too. … become people of love instead of hate,” he said. When contacted by phone, Lane’s sister refused to comment. On Tuesday evening, the family is anticipated to provide a written statement.
1/2 #Gregory_Hunt in #Alabama to be executed today. Members of the German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty are thinking of offenders and victims and their relatives and friends pic.twitter.com/gUJPljlMi8
— German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (@GCADP) June 10, 2025
“The way she was killed is just devastating,” Denise Gurganus, Lane’s sister, told TV station WBRC at a 2014 vigil for crime victims. “It’s hard enough to lose a family member to death, but when it’s this gruesome.” Hunt has already been on death row longer than Lane was alive, according to the Alabama attorney general’s office, which asked justices to deny Hunt’s plea for a stay of execution.
Last year, Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen gas for an execution. Five executions have already involved nitrogen, including four in Alabama and one in Louisiana. By forcing a person to breathe pure nitrogen gas through a gas mask, the technique deprives them of oxygen, which is essential for survival.
Hunt’s chosen method of execution was nitrogen. He chose him before Alabama had established gas-use protocols. Inmates in Alabama are also permitted to select between the electric chair and lethal injection.
