Kenneth Smith thrashed and writhed during Alabama execution: ‘That was torture,’ spiritual adviser says

The spiritual adviser who prayed with Kenneth Eugene Smith before Alabama executed him Thursday night by nitrogen gas described it as “torture” that shocked witnesses and the prison officials standing nearby.

Smith became the first inmate to die using the new method of execution never before tested in the United States.

He was sentenced to die in the murder-for-hire plot of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett in her home in Colbert County in 1988. Sennett was a pastor’s wife who was beaten and stabbed.

Just before 7 p.m., the five media witnesses— including a representative from AL.com — boarded the prison van. Media witnesses and a spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections then went through a security checkpoint, before sitting for nearly an hour in a trailer on prison property.

At 7:47 p.m., media witnesses left that trailer and entered the viewing room to the execution.

Four of Smith’s witnesses sat in the viewing room: his wife, son, lawyer and friend. His wife wore a shirt which read, “Never Alone.”

The curtain to the viewing room opened at 7:53 p.m. Smith looked toward the room where his family and media witnesses sat, smiling and nodding his head.

He gave a thumbs up sign and signed “I love you” with his left hand. “Tonight, Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards.”

Smith then spoke with his spiritual advisor the Rev. Jeff Hood, and Hood touched Smith’s feet with his Bible. Smith continued to smile toward his family.

The gas appeared to start flowing at approximately 7:58 p.m. Smith visibly shook and writhed against the gurney for around two minutes.

His arms thrashed against the restraints. He breathed heavily, slightly gasping, for approximately seven more minutes.

At one point, his wife cried out.

At 8:01 p.m., a correctional officer in the execution chamber leaned over Smith and examined his face, before stepping away and walking back to his post.

Smith appeared to stop breathing at 8:08 p.m.

Hood continuously blessed Smith, making the sign of the cross throughout the execution. The curtain closed to the execution at 8:15 p.m.

After the execution, Hood, held a press conference with Death Penalty Action officials and Smith’s wife at a local hotel.

“What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life,” Hood said. “We saw spit. We saw all sorts of stuff from his mouth onto the mask.”

With the mask “tied to the gurney,” Hood said, Smith continuously “ripped his head forward.”

Hood said he would dispute any assertion by ADOC that the execution went as the department anticipated. “This was not what they thought was going to happen,” Hood said.

“We have got to do whatever it takes to make sure that this never, ever happens again,” Hood said. “I hope this is a moment in which the people say, ‘Not in my name.’”

Hood said he has witnessed five lethal injection executions over the past year or so. “Lethal injection is preferable every single day.”

Hood said witnesses didn’t see the execution over in a matter of seconds. “What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for his life,” he said.

“Kenny Smith was by no means a perfect person,” Hood said.

It was unfortunate, he said, that the execution was “how the state decided they were going to honor Elizabeth Sennett’s memory.”

Mike Senneth, one of Elizabeth Sennett’s two sons stood at the back of the press conference listening to Hood and others. When asked what he thought of it, he said “it sucks.”

Hood, speaking after the execution in a video shared by the Woods Foundation on X, the social media outlet formerly known as Twitter, described what he saw in Smith’s dying moments.

The Woods Foundation works to end the death penalty and was named after Nathaniel Woods, executed for in 2020 for his role in the 2004 murders of three Birmingham police officers.

“When they turned the nitrogen on, he began to convulse, he popped up on the gurney over and over and over and over again. He shook the whole gurney. I could hear audible gasps coming behind me from the witness area. I could see the corrections officers that were in there....I think they were very surprised that it didn’t go smoother.”

Smith, Hood said, may have continued breathing for up to 10 minutes.

“An unbelievable evil was unleashed tonight in Alabama,” Hood said. “That was torture.”

Despite Hood’s account, Attorney General Steve Marshall said in carrying out the nitrogen gas execution, “Alabama has achieved something historic.”

Anti-death-penalty activists, Marshall said, “don’t care that Alabama’s new method is humane and effective, because they know it is also easy to carry out.”