First Ever Nitrogen Hypoxia Execution. The Case of Kenneth Eugene Smith
Where to Listen
The Murder of Elizabeth Sennett
A Horrible Robbery Gone Wrong or Something Darker…?
Knock Knock Knock. It’s March 18th, 1988, and Elizabeth Sennett was home alone when two men knocked on the door. She answered and was asked if the men could look around the wooded property behind her home as a hunting ground. The men told her that her husband, Charles Sennett had given them permission already. She was skeptical since the men barely knew Charles’ name, so she excused herself to call her husband. Charles confirmed with Elizabeth that he gave the men permission and to let them go ahead and look around and off the men went into the wooded area behind the single-family home in Colbert County Alabama. A little while later, the men knocked on the door again and the one man asked Elizabeth if he could use the bathroom, which she agreed to. Elizabeth made small talk with the one man before the other emerged from the bathroom with socks on his hands. He made his way behind Elizabeth and started beating her. The men used many different objects from around the house including all the pieces of a fireplace set, a cane and a piece of galvanized pipe. Elizabeth begged for the men to stop hurting her as she was rolled into a rug. The one man started looking for valuables around the house as the other took out a large hunting knife and stabbed Elizabeth 8 time through the rug. Elizabeth started praying for the men and they decided the flee the scene. A simple robbery gone horribly wrong, or was it something much darker...?
The Sennett Family
So, who are the Sennett’s? Elizabeth and Charles were a small town nuclear Christian family. Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett was born on December 10th, 1942, in Cleveland Ohio and she met and got married to Charles Sennett and they decided to move to Tennessee where Charles went to preaching school. Yes. It's called preaching school for some reason, not vocational school. After this they moved over to a small town in Alabama that was within Colbert Country. She and Charles had two sons together, Charles Sennett Jr. who goes by Chuck and Mike Sennett. Chuck described that “She (Elizabeth) never held a full-time job that I remember but she was a homemaker, housewife, mother, confidant, best friend, however, you want to think of your mother. She was a smart woman, a preacher's wife, had good values. She had me and my brother towing the line. She wasn't really strict, but she taught us right from wrong.”
However, things started to get strained financially being a small-town pastor. Charles started a bit of a side hustle and began selling funeral vaults which is what coffins go in before they are put into the ground. After a while Charles was under extreme pressure and one day Elizabeth and their son couldn't get ahold of Charles. They went down to his office, and they found him curled up on the floor admits a nervous breakdown. Because of this, Charles had to give up preaching for a few years and Elizabeth became the breadwinner and took care of her sons and her husband who was mentally unwell. Charles was a generational pastor, and this was extremely hard on him. After a while he did began preaching again and his sons were out of the house. Their oldest son Chuck found a wife and started a family and he had just moved back from being in the Navy around the time that Elizabeth was attacked.
The Crime Scene
Charles Sennett returned home to find his wife severely beaten and bloodied and called the Sheriff's department. The police rushed to the house to find that Elizabeth was still alive. When the deputies told Charles his wife was still alive, he looked shocked, and his eyes went wide. There are a couple different accounts, but some say Elizabeth died on route to the hospital or she died after arriving and receiving medical attention, either way she sadly passed away. One EMT knew the Sennett’s and when he saw Elizabeths body, he said that he wouldn’t have even recognized her without someone telling him. The police started searching the house and at the first lookover they thought that this could have been a robbery gone wrong. There was some broken glass, and the house was messy. Elizabeth’s daughter in law said that there was a VCR player that was missing from the home. However, that was all that was taken, leading the police to suspect more was going on than what met the eye. They started looking further and confirmed their suspicions when they found several valuables around the house untouched, and 400 dollars was still in Elizabeths wallet. This was not a robbery. They kept searching the property and they soon found a pond located behind the house. They searched the murky water and found all the murder weapons including the survival knife, fireplace tools and the pipe. They also recovered a hat found at the scene and hair samples. They then found a valentines day card in the home from Charles that was addressed to a woman named Dorris, a lady from the church where Charles preached. The police now suspected that there was an ongoing affair between Charles and this woman for some time. So, about a week after the murder, the police brought Charles in for questioning and asked about the card. He claimed he had nothing to do with his wife's murder and he was free to leave. Charles was shaken up and was feeling a lot of pressure from the investigation.
He then got all his children together, Chuck and his wife and Mike, and had them gather at the church. He explained to them that he had been having an affair with Dorris from the church. The children were obviously very upset with all of this. They were all leaving the church and Charles and Mike made eye contact with each other and Charles then got into his truck when the kids heard a gunshot. The stress of the debt, the affair, the shame from his family and now the pressure from the police, led Charles Sr, to shoot himself in the chest with his rifle. He was dead when the police arrived.
New Suspects
So now the police have no suspects. So, they decided to raise the reward money to anyone with information that leads to arrests from 1000 to 10k dollars and three days later someone calls. They told the police three names and that's Billy Williams, John Parker and Kenneth Smith. The police search Kenneths house, and they found a VCR player and they were able to somehow match the serial number to the Sennett household. They brought Kenneth into the station for questioning, and he immediately folded after hearing evidence and gave the police a detailed written statement on everything that happened however later at trial, the men try to blame each other for the crime of course. The prosecution said “they always tell the story in the light most favorable to them. It's not an uncommon thing on a scene like this, on a crime scene where a person is still alive to hear this gurgling sound of a person still trying to force air into their lungs."
What Really Happened
So, what the hell happened? Earlier in 1988 Charles was having severe financial problems like we talked about and the affair with Dorris. He wasn't making enough money as a small-town pastor and his marriage just wasn't enough. Charles and Elizabeth were renting out a space somewhere, so Charles asked one of his tenants, Billy Grey Williams, for some help. He offered Williams 3000 dollars if he could murder his wife Elizabeth which Williams said he could get someone. Charles could then collect insurance money (which he just bought for his wife) to solve his financial problems and solve the issue of the affair.
Saving for Murder
Now, I’m going to add a little segment here called “Saving for Murder.” I think it's always funny to hear financial problems being the excuse for murder and especially when they take a large sum of money to pay for a hitman instead of taking care of the financial problems. It's ironic so I did a bunch of math and figured out how long it would take for Charles to save for murder. Now as a disclaimer here, I found out later in my research that Charles borrowed the money from Dorris and was going to pay her back with the life insurance, but I already did all this math, and this is just for fun if you like numbers like me. If you don't care, just skip ahead a minute or two, there's timestamps.
Saving for Murder. I found that an average pastor’s salary in Alabama as of today is about $57,922. About $4,826 a month. $1,113 a week or 27.85 an hour. Now convert all of this to 1988 money to put it in perspective, regardless this isn't that bad of money. Average income in America as of 2024 is between 59k and 63k. Not a lot of consistent data pulls but this is the range. Now getting back to it. A Pastors average yearly salary in 1988 would be about 21,728.94. 1810.43 a month. 417.53 a week or about 10.45 an hour. If we take the 3000 dollars he had to chuck up for the murder, that will mean he would have to work with zero expenses at all for about 1.657 months or about 1 month and 20ish days. Now that's without expenses at all. He had a wife at home, and a house so assumingly a mortgage and utilities, and I'm sure he had business expenses to worry about with the maintenance of the church. SO, let's say he was a good financial advocate and he saved 10% of his income and used the rest for expenses. That would be about $181.04 per month he’d be able to save. That would mean it would take him about 16.57 months or about 1 year 4 months and 18 days to save $3000 dollars. Almost a year and a half of consistently saving 10%. Now, let's say he decided to make sure he could track this money in a good savings account. In the late 80’s the average savings account had around a 10% APY, fucking crazy right. If he kept putting the 181.04 in per month, he would be able to save the 3000 dollars needed in about 16.32 or about 1 year, 4 months and 10 days. This would mean he could get the needed 3000 dollars 8 days earlier if he put it into a savings account compared to keeping it in cash. And remember, next time when you're in a desperate situation, ask yourself, is it worth saving for murder?
The Plot
So, to make its clear one more time, Charles got the money from Dorris, who is the woman he was having an affair with and offered to give the 3000 dollars to Billy Grey Williams. Billy wasn't sure about doing this himself though, so he found Kenneth Eugene Smith. Nothing is really known about Kenneth, but we do know he was born on July 4th, 1965, in Alabama. Billy and Kenny then started to discuss the murder and decided to also recruit John Forrest Parker, who we know was a drug addict. Before asking Parker to help, Kenny asked another friend to help but he declined. This friend testified later in court and said that Kenny approached him saying that he had a way to make some “fast cash,” and they just had to “hurt this old lady or something.” The men used this as proof of innocence because they claimed they weren’t sure if they were supposed to just beat up Elizabeth or not until a few days before the murder where all the men sat down for a meal to discuss the final details. Kenny and John also claimed that they didn’t even know that they were supposed to hurt Charles wife. At this meal, Charles gave John and Kenny 200 dollars to purchase a gun and other equipment for the murder and he showed all the men the rest of the 3000 dollars which they would all split after the murder. The plan was in action, so John decided to take his money and purchase drugs with it instead of a gun. So now we're back to the murder. Before leaving for the murder John Parker shot up the drugs he had purchased with his 200 dollars, and he got in the driver’s seat and started driving him and Kenny. Kenny was occupied by sharpening a large hunter's knife they intended to use for the murder. There's speculation that Kenny also used drugs, but it's not confirmed, however John’s drugs use is confirmed because he confessed to this later to the police. So, the men knock on the door as we know and search the woods. When John and Kenny went into the wood, they stayed out there for quite a while, and we can only assume they're trying to prepare themselves and discussing final details. When they come back to use the bathroom, John is the one who went in and put socks on his hands. The men were supposed to have gloves, but I can guess that the 200 dollars was supposed to be for gloves too, but I guess socks work. Kenny was distracting Elizabeth with small talk when John came up from behind and started the beating. Both men beat Elizabeth but after rolling her in the rug, Kenny started to look for valuables and make it look like a robbery. After this the men fled the scene and later Charles entered and found his. Full circle moment right here. When the sheriff told Charles his wife was still alive, he wasn't shocked in a good way but was horrified. After this the Sheriff kept a close eye on Charles and realized he knew Charles from somewhere. A few weeks earlier there was another murder in the town, I think at a store of some kind. The Sheriff was thinking on it and realized that Charles was at that crime scene and was watching the police conduct their investigations and was seeing what they were doing. He was not involved in this murder, but the Sheriff took note of it and stated it was odd. Looking back on it, the Sheriff suspected that Charles was possibly trying to gain some insight into a murder investigation and tailor his wife's scene in a more efficient way. Which worked out so well. This is all speculative though. Also, that hat they found at the scene with hair was not Charles, but the hair did match either John or Parker, which also helped link them to the crime.
Billy Grey Williams
Billy Gray Williams was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, later getting it changed to murder. He was sentenced to life in prison and was sent to Donaldson Correction Facility in Jefferson County. He recently died in prison in 2020 from natural causes.
John Forrest Parker
Now, John Parker was charged with capital murder and was taken to trial. His defense tried arguing that John wasn’t trying to murder Elizabeth and he roughed her up and then when Charles arrived home, he saw his wife alive, and Charles stabbed her to death. This didn't work and the jury deliberated and found his guilty and they recommended a sentence of life in prison. However, in the state of Alabama the judge can make the final ruling, regardless of the jury recommendations and John Parker was sentenced to death. John was taken to Death Row at Holman Prison in Atmore and was housed there until June 10th, 2010, his execution day. Several days before the execution John appealed to the US Supreme Court after the Alabama Supreme court rejected his stay of execution 7-2. John tried arguing that it was unconstitutional for the trial judge to have awesome power to override the jury’s recommendation of a life sentence. The state argued that John had already used this plea and it's been denied, furthering that it was legal for this to happen in Alabama law and the judge carefully considered the jury's recommendation before sentencing. The United States rejected his plea, and the execution went ahead. John refused breakfast in the morning and was placed in a holding cell. He spent the day meeting friends and family including his mother and father, Joan and Edward Parker. He gave his possessions to several family members, including a gold watch, a mirror, stamps, a belt, a wallet and a box of pictures. He ate his final meal later in the day consisting of fried fish, French fries and iced tea. The prison said he was calm during the lethal injection process, and he was pronounced dead at 6:41 PM
Kenneth Eugene Smith
Now Kenneth Smith. This is where it gets interesting. He was tried last, and his trial got a change of venue since after the John Parker and Billy Williams trial, it was a very well-known case, and the courts decided it would be best to move the trial. The case was pretty cut and dry, especially with his full confession. The state called Kenneth’s friend to testify, and he said that the day after the murder he went to Kenneth’s house and noticed that he had an unusually large amount of money that he thought was in $20 denominations. Kenneth told this friend that he got the money from his tax return. The one friend that declined to participate was also called to testify against Kenneth. All damning evidence and the jury found him guilty of capital murder and they recommended a sentence of death with a majority 10-2 vote and Kenneth was sentenced by the Judge to death. In the state of Alabama, a judge can override a jury’s recommendation and determine the final sentence like we talked about with John, and this is a very similar process to what happened in the Amber McLaughlin case, if you haven't heard that one go check it out! Kenneth tried to appeal that the jury didn't understand “reasonable doubt.” It really didn't work at all. The state argued that reasonable doubt is self-explanatory. They said that the state did not have to convince a jury beyond ALL doubt and that the jury couldn’t acquit someone just because they had slight doubt. They had to, beyond reasonable moral doubt, find someone not guilty, which in this case, they literally had his confession. Now about the confession. Kenneth tried to argue that his admission of his confession into the courtroom violated his 5th and 4th amendment rights. He claimed he was coerced into the confession because he wasn’t informed that he was being questioned for the murder, only that he was being questioned about the VCR and that the officers used a form of “trickery” to get him to confess. The state argues though that he was given his Meranda Rights and that just because he wasn't questioned specifically about the murder, he started talking about it on his own free will and that the officer's silence is not a form of trickery. However, Kenneth’s appeal also brought up a strong point. In the sentencing the trial court failed to enter specific written facts and conclusions as to the mitigating and aggravating circumstances as required by some Code of Alabama. The appeals court didn't have any way to review the facts of the sentencing process that the judge used and therefore the appeals court reversed his sentence, and he was scheduled for a resentencing trial. Now in this next trial short and sweet the jury deliberated and recommended a sentence of life in prison 11-1, however the trial judge thought that Kenneth needed to be sentenced to death again. He kept attempting to appeal after this for the next couple decades but now we get to more current times. So, in 2017, Alabama became the last state to remove the judge's ability to impose a death sentence regardless of a jury recommendation, and the jury had to from then on have a unanimous vote to put someone to death. However, this new ruling was not retroactive, meaning after cases before this ruling were not affected. Probably because it would’ve been hella expensive to have to do a huge flood of appeals based on this new ruling.
Kenneth’s First Execution Attempt
Now, we get to Kenneth’s first execution. Yes, the first of two... Let me explain. On November 17th, 2022, Kenneth was set to be executed by lethal injection. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, counsel for the Alabama Department of Corrections was finally reviewing Kenneth’s case as he was getting prepped to be executed. At 7:45 pm Kenneth's case was pending, and he had one last call with his wife, which I never heard about a wife before, so this dude got a wife in prison. Guards hung up his call at 7:57 and he was placed in handcuffs and leg bars and taken to the execution chamber, where he was strapped to the gurney. A couple minutes later a stay of execution was placed on Kenneth’s execution and his lawyers contacted the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) with the news. They simply replied “Noted.” I don't know what the ADOC was thinking or what their motivations were but after this they kept Kenneth strapped to the gurney for 4 more hours. This entire time Kenneth was not allowed to speak to his lawyers and was never informed of the stay or updated on any other legal proceeding regarding his case. He thought he was going to die. At around 10:00 pm the ADOC sent in the IV team and attempted to place an intravenous line for the drugs. Now around this time the Eleventh Circuit lifted the stay of execution and granted the team until 12am midnight to finish the execution. Now when there's an execution, the execution team has a certain time frame where they must fully be done with the execution before the death warrant expires and they must stop. Now going back, it is unknown if the IV team started poking at Kenneth’s before or after the stay of execution was lifted, it's said the Supreme Court lifted the stay at 10:20pm. We’ll never know. But in these two hours, Kenneth was poked with needles over and over with no success in finding a suitable vein. Kenneth attempted to tell the team member that they were putting the needles into his muscle in which they responded, “No I’m not.” After this the execution team turned Kenneth upside down on the gurney and he was in an inverted crucifix position and was left like this for several minutes alone. He was then injected with an unknown substance in his arm. Someone then came into the room and started jabbing Kenneth’s collarbone repeatedly trying to set a central IV line. Around 11:20 rumors circulated that the execution was called off and Kenneth’s lawyer emailed the department to confirm that it had been, but they never got a response. Shortly before midnight and after many unsuccessful attempts to place a line, the execution team told Kenneth “It's over with.” When guards removed him from the gurney Kenneth was unable to move his arms up to be handcuffed or walk without any support. This was the third consecutive botched lethal injection attempt in the state of Alabama in the past year of 2022. Because of these incidents, the Alabama governor Kay Ivey called for a review of the execution process. She also wanted to approve giving ADOC more time in a death warrant to do an execution and this was approved on January 12th of 2023. The entire execution process was approved in February of 2023 and executions were allowed to continue as usual.
A New Method: Nitrogen Hypoxia
So, there’s the first execution attempt. With Kenneth’s next execution, his counsel pushed for an alternative method of execution method to be used known as nitrogen hypoxia. Now this method is where they would place a mask over the person's face and force them to breathe pure nitrogen gas causing asphyxiation and death. Alabama did make nitrogen hypoxia an alternative form of execution in 2018 because the state was consistently having problems getting the drugs for lethal injections. Mississippi, Oklahoma and Alabama are the only three states at the time of this episode to have nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative to the federal default of lethal injection. On January 10th, 2024, Kenneth execution using nitrogen hypoxia was approved and he was set to be executed on the 25th of January. Kenneth tried to appeal saying the new method would be unconstitutional because attempting to execute him twice could be cruel and unusual punishment, but this was denied, and the execution pushed forward.
As the hype of this execution got bigger more and more opinions started surfacing. Kenneth’s spiritual advisor, Referend Jeff Hood spoke of many concerns he had about the new process. He told CNN “The process, obviously, is designed to execute Kenneth Smith, but the way that they’re constructing this, the way that they’re doing it, the way that they’re being silent, the way that they’re holding back information, yes, it’s incredibly concerning. And should be incredibly concerning for everybody in the room.” Another big argument made by protestors of the execution sighted facts that many veterinarian scientists have ruled out nitrogen gas as a euthanasian method due to ethical reasons. They furthered this by saying that it is discouraged for most mammals because it can lead to distress, panic and other seizure like behaviors. Elizabeth Sennett's sons were also speaking their opinions. Micheal Sennett explained that “It seems like a lot of the focus today is on Smith and his nitrogen, whatever, process, and that kind of upset us a little bit.” Chuck Sennett added “Some of these people out here say ‘Well he doesn't need to suffer like that’. Well, he didn't ask mama how to suffer. They just did it.”
On the day of the execution Kenneth ate his last meal consisting of eggs, hashbrowns and a T-bone steak from The Waffle House. After many last-minute appeals were rejected, Kenneth was prepped for execution. Kenneth was dressed in a tan prison jumpsuit he was taken into the execution chamber and was strapped to a gurney. He was then partially covered with a white sheet. At 7:53 the curtains between the viewing room and the chamber opened. A large blue rimmed face mask was already placed over his face from his forehead to his chin. The prison warden stepped into the chamber and read Kenneth’s death warrant and then held a microphone to Kenneth for his last words. “Tonight, Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards, I’m leaving with love, peace and light. ... Love all of you,” As he made an ‘I love you’ sign with his fingers to his family members. The attorney general then gave the ADOC the greenlight to follow through with the execution. Kenneth’s spiritual advisor approached Kenneth and started praying with him. At 7:58 Kenneth started to shake and writhe violently and even visibly moved the gurney. He pulled on the arm restraints and lifted his head. He dropped his head back down and his wife started crying. Kenneth was then seen taking long gasping breaths and at 8:08 his chest stopped moving. The curtains were closed at 8:15 and state officials said that they pronounced Kenneth dead at 8:25. The state has declined to discuss when the nitrogen started flowing or when Kenneth’s heart rate monitor proved his heart had stopped. The news of the execution confirmed to many that the new method was indeed cruel and unusual and did not bring the quick and painless death they hoped. This has raised many questions to whether the nitrogen hypoxia execution method will be used again or if it'll get modified for better effectiveness.
Final Words from the Sennetts
I want to end this story with some words from the victim's family that are truly powerful. After the execution Mike Sennett, who was joined with his brother Chuck Sennett said “Nothing happened here today that's going to bring Mom back. Nothing. It's kind of a bittersweet day. We're not going to be jumping around, hooting and hollering "hooray" and all that. That's not us. But we're glad this day is over. All three of the people involved in this case years ago, we have forgiven. Not today but we have in the past. Some people may not believe that, you know, how do you forgive somebody. Well, for it to be more Christ-like, try to live his teachings and stuff, he forgive the ones on the cross right, the theives, and if im trying to live my life like him, it is my duty and it is a weight off my shoulders. I forgive him, I forgive him what he done, I don't like what he done but they are forgiven from us. The Bible says evil deeds has consequences - and Kenneth Smith made some bad decisions 35 years ago - and his debt was paid tonight. Some of you may have heard us talk about over and over about 35 years, 35 years. Kenneth Smith, Parker, Williams - Williams not so much because he died in the system, but Parker and Smith have been incarcerated almost twice as long as I knew my mom. Elizabeth Dorlene Thorne Sennett got her justice tonight."
And with that, John Forest Parker and Kenneth Eugene Smith’s sentences were served...
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