Warning: This article contains explicit descriptions of execution methods that may upset some readers.
On Thursday, January 25, Kenneth Eugene Smith is scheduled to become the first person in the United States to be executed by the untested method of nitrogen gas poisoning.
During his final days awaiting execution, he told the BBC that he was haunted by thoughts of the experimental procedure.
Kevin Eugene Smith, convicted of the 1988 murder, was scheduled to be executed earlier, in November 2022.
The executioners of the state of Alabama then had several hours at their disposal to kill him.
They strapped a condemned man to a gurney in the so-called "death chamber" at Holman Correctional Facility and tried to inject him with a lethal mixture of chemicals.
But they failed in that.
Unable to find a vein, which Smith's lawyers claim left his arm covered in numerous stab wounds, they gave up trying as the clock struck midnight because the federal death warrant had expired.
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Now Alabama authorities will try to kill him again.
This time the US federal government approved a plan to suffocate Smith by placing an airtight mask over his face and forcing him to breathe pure nitrogen, a noble gas that would deprive his body of oxygen.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated recently that the method used so far could never amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and called for an end.
A final decision on the appeal is still awaited after a federal court rejected his lawyers' request for an injunction.
Smith is scheduled to be executed on Thursday.
Smith was one of two men convicted in 1989 of murdering the priest's wife, Elizabeth Sennett, who was stabbed and beaten to death in a $1.000 hit-and-run.
He is one of the few men in modern America who has been twice executed and the first to be executed by nitrogen gas.
"My body is just falling apart, I'm losing weight," Smith told the BBC in a written response to questions sent to him through an intermediary.
Face-to-face meetings between journalists and death row inmates are prohibited in Alabama.
We managed to reach him by phone at the end of last week, but he asked that the interview not continue because he claimed he was not feeling well.
"I feel nauseous all the time. I have regular panic attacks…
"This is just a small part of what I face on a daily basis. In other words, torture," he wrote.
He urged Alabama authorities to "stop the execution before it's too late."
The state maintains that nitrogen gas execution will cause a rapid loss of consciousness, but has so far offered no convincing evidence of this.
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Medical experts and activists have warned of the risk of catastrophic side effects, ranging from violent convulsions to surviving in a vegetative state, and even the possibility of gas leaking from the mask and killing other people in the room, including Smith's religious advocate.
“I'm sure Kenny isn't afraid to die, he's made that clear by now.
"But I think he's afraid he's going to be further tortured during the process," says his spiritual adviser, the Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood.
He signed a legal document in which the state protects itself from the danger of nitrogen leakage.
"I'll be a few feet away from him, and I've been warned time and time again by various medical experts that I'm risking my own life doing that.
"If there's any leak from the hose, if there's any leak from the mask, from the hermetic seal around his face, it could certainly cause nitrogen to leak into the room," Dr Hood told the BBC.
This amounts to an unacceptable level of danger, says an expert who co-authored an investigation sent to the United Nations.
Dr. Joel Zivot, associate professor of anesthesiology at Amory University School of Medicine, accused Alabama authorities of a "horrific" history of "brutal" executions.
"I think I have to conclude that Kenneth Smith must be the worst man in America, because Alabama is so determined to kill him that it is willing to kill other people just to kill him," Dr Zivot told the BBC.
"Imagine a firing squad where all the witnesses are lined up next to the person they're going to execute and they all sign a waiver, because it turns out the people they have aren't the best shooters, so it's possible they'll hit you too.
"So those are the things I can imagine happening with nitrogen gas," he said.
"What we know about nitrogen gas is that in an early study of healthy volunteers, almost all of them developed a generalized epileptic seizure after 15 to 20 seconds of inhalation," he says.
Under such a scenario, Smith would lose consciousness before experiencing a series of violent spasms.
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Alabama has one of the highest per capita execution rates in the US, with 165 people currently on death row.
As of 2018, the state is responsible for three failed lethal injection attempts in which the convicts survived.
The failures led to an internal investigation that largely blamed the inmates themselves.
It said their lawyers had tried to save their lives by "wasting time" by filing last-minute court appeals for a stay of execution.
The inquiry concluded that this put "unnecessary pressure to meet the deadline" on their executioners.
This time, instead of a midnight deadline, the team will be given a longer "time window" to execute Smith.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who has the power to stop judicial executions, declined to comment on the experts' warnings and accusations against the state.
The Crown Prosecution Service called the United Nations' concerns "as baseless as Smith's".
"The court reviewed Smith's appeal, heard numerous medical experts, and determined that Smith's concerns about nitrogen hypoxia were 'speculative' and 'theoretical.'
"We intend to carry out the execution on January 25," they said in a statement.
Republican Rep. Reed Ingram, who voted in favor of approving executions by nitrogen gas, rejected criticism from the United Nations.
"I don't know if it's humiliating, I don't know if it's inhumane, but I think we're making progress. I think the process is better than what he did to the victim," he told the BBC.
"Our governor is a Christian. She has considered this whole thing and thinks it is well thought out. I'm sure it stresses her out, but that's the law," he said.
The BBC spoke to Elizabeth Sennett's family, who said they would not comment until Thursday.
In 1996, jurors recommended life in prison for Smith without the possibility of parole, but the judge overruled them and sentenced him to death.
Smith admitted at the trial that he was present when the victim was killed, but claims that he did not participate in the attack.
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