ALABAMA – Both of Elizabeth Sennett’s sons will watch his mother’s killer Kenneth Eugene Smith be executed by nitrogen gas tonight in Alabama , 35 years after the heinous crime took place.
Statement From the Sons
‘We just want this to be over with and I am sure his family does, too. It’s been 35 years,’ Charles ‘Chuck’ Sennett told 1819 News in an interview this week.
‘He’s [Smith] actually probably laughing, or has been because he said he would get out of that first one, and he did. So, this one better go through, or we are going to have some serious problems,’ he continued.
Smith was one of two men convicted of the 1988 murder-for-hire of Elizabeth, a preacher’s wife.
Why Elizabeth was Murdered
Prosecutors said Smith and the other man were each paid $1,000 to kill her on behalf of her husband, also named Charles Sr., who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect insurance money.
Smith Refused Death in 2022
Alabama first attempted to execute Smith in 2022 with legal injection but failed to locate a vein.
Elizabeth’s sons say he was able to do this by dehydrating himself for days.
‘Here we are 35 years later still talking about it. The man’s been in prison right at twice as long as we knew our mom,’ Chuck said in a separate interview.
When Smith dies, all of the men involved in the plot to kill Elizabeth Sennett will be gone.
What Happened to Their Father
Their father took his own life before he was ever charged, another man involved John Parker, was executed in 2010 while Billy Williams died while serving a life sentence.
Mike Forgives
‘I forgive Parker. I forgive Williams. I forgive Smith. Do I like what they done? No, but that’s what I’m supposed to do. To me, that’s another burden lifted off my shoulders,’ his brother, Mike Sennett, told WAFF.
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She was Stabbed Fatally
In his 1819 interview, Chuck said that she was stabbed around a dozen times in the neck and head.
‘She had scars all over her upper body. Me and my brother went out there to the farm and had to have the carpet replaced, we cleaned the walls, the fireplace, everything. It was just bad. It was bad. And so, she apparently had put up a good fight. It was terrible. It was terrible,’ he said.
He went on to rail against the justice system in Alabama which as afforded their mother’s killer so many appeals.
In 2022, Smith was strapped to the gurney in the execution chamber being prepared for lethal injection, but the state called off the lethal injection when execution team members had difficulty connecting the second of two required intravenous lines to Smith’s veins.
He was strapped to the gurney for nearly four hours, according to his lawyers, as he waited to see if the execution would go forward.
The first person in the world to have been executed by nitrogen gas
On Wednesday, a federal appeals court refused to block what would be the nation’s first execution by a new method since 1982.
A divided panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Smith’s request for an injunction to stop his execution by nitrogen hypoxia Thursday night.
Smith’s lawyers, who have argued the state is trying to make him the test subject for an experimental execution method, are expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in a final bid to halt the scheduled execution.
The judges said in a 2-1 decision there is ‘no doubt that death by nitrogen hypoxia is both new and novel’ but that Smith had failed to establish how it would violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
