An Alabama inmate who was convicted of killing a man over a drug debt is set to be executed on Thursday evening. It was the state’s latest death sentence to be carried out with nitrogen gas.
54-year-old Anthony Boyd was sentenced to death for taking part in the killing of Gregory Huguley in Talladega County almost 30 years ago. Huguley was doused in gasoline and then set on fire after he failed to pay for $200 worth of cocaine, claimed prosecutors.
Boyd’s lawyers tried their best to make the courts review the method of his upcoming execution more thoroughly. However, their efforts were unsuccessful. His execution is scheduled for Thursday evening at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in southern Alabama. The legal team argued that the method is unconstitutionally cruel.
It’s been a year since Alabama started using a new method of execution. The new method involves strapping an execution mask around the inmate’s face. The mask gradually replaces the air they breathe with pure nitrogen gas, which ultimately causes death due to oxygen deprivation.
A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder in the 1993 killing of Huguley, whose burned body was found in a rural Talladega County ballfield. The jury immediately sentenced him to death by a 10-2 vote count. Prosecutors were of the view that Boyd was one of the four men involved in the kidnapping. A key witness even said in a plea that Boyd tied Huguley’s feet before another man poured gasoline and set him on fire.
However, for a long time, Boyd denied involvement in the murder.
“I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in any killing,” he said at a news conference in October. His attorney argued that he was at a party that same night and that the plea deal testimony is unreliable. Supporters ran campaigns against his execution and even put up billboards across Alabama.
#AnthonyBoyd faces execution in Alabama on Oct 23 despite no physical evidence and a conviction based only on a co-defendant’s deal to save his own life.
Pls call @GovernorKayIvey 334-242-7100 and urge her to halt this injustice.#StopExecutionsAlabama pic.twitter.com/WavIXY5iA3— Karine Omry (@KarineOmry) October 18, 2025
Since 1995, Boyd has been on death row. He even leads the Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, a group founded by inmates on death row. Shawn Ingram, another accused of pouring the gasoline, is also on death row.
A federal judge rejected Boyd’s request to stop his execution earlier this month. His lawyers argued that execution by nitrogen gas is basically violating the Eighth Amendment. Witnesses have described inmates shaking and gasping once the process of execution starts. However, the state says that these reactions are involuntary.
Execution is cruel and unusual and should be classified as torture.
We are contributing to the cycle of violence.
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Anthony Boyd scheduled for execution by gas asphyxiation tomorrow.
**Every cell of the body is smothered and crushed as it’s deprived of oxygen. pic.twitter.com/9VcFiS5tef— Mary Seymour (@Pisces369112876) October 22, 2025
The Rev. Jeff Hood will serve as Boyd’s spiritual adviser for the execution, calling nitrogen executions “most viscerally horrible by far.”
