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The rain outside provided a gloomy, yet appropriate shroud as it fell steadily Thursday night when the white Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) van carrying the five state media witnesses departed for the nearby Holman Correctional Facility at just about 7 p.m.

This scene followed the quiet chaos in that little, unimportant building that came in the few small moments after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Smith’s request for a stay Thursday night.

It was the final legal challenge in a nearly four-decade courtroom odyssey for this particular death penalty case and cleared the way for Alabama to make history as the first state to kill a condemned man in such a way — never mind the arguments that a veterinarian wouldn’t put down a stray dog like that without a least giving the mangey hound a sedative.

“The details are hazy because Alabama released its heavily redacted protocol under five months ago,” Associate Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion. “What Smith knows is that he will be strapped to a gurney. He will wear a nitrogen-supplying, off-the-rack mask for which the state has not fitted him or even tried on him. Once the nitrogen is flowing into the mask, his executioners will not intervene and will not remove the mask, even if Smith vomits into it and chokes on his own vomit.”

Smith was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m.

He was 58 years old.

Smith didn’t puke in his final moments of life, no, but his last breath only served to close the latest regrettable chapter in the history of our state’s grossly deformed approach to capital punishment.

Calling Alabama’s handling of the death penalty “wrong,” “cruel,” or “immoral” would miss the mark completely because such accusations would imply deliberate thought and insidious intent.

I don’t particularly care if you’re a liberal or conservative in this state, but to think such things gives our state leaders far too much credit.

Deformed — that’s the word I’ve settled on when describing Alabama’s handling of capital punishment.

But I’m not here to wax poetically on the morals of the death penalty, especially in a state where such words would no doubt fall on the deaf ears of an overwhelming majority that stands in favor of it in at least one form or another.

I could bore you with my longwinded critiques of tambourine-shaking advocates who think the entire justice system should be replaced with lawlessness, while at the same time likely angering most of you by lamenting the false machismo of the folks on the other side of the political spectrum who publicly celebrated and made jokes at the expense of a state-sanctioned killing.

Executions are a deeply serious matter and shouldn’t be a cause for uninformed political activism nor should they be a reason for celebration on the part of wannabe tough guys who get off on adding an extra layer of pain and suffering to an already tragic situation. In basic journalism ethics, you’re taught to never revictimize the victim or make new victims of the family of the condemned for the sake of public catharsis.

No, we’ve lost our ability to think rationally on such matters.

Think about it: In today’s society, you’re un-American and support violent criminality if you so much as question the powers that be by pointing out issues with the execution method, the ethics of capital punishment or the hourglass speed by which our justice system lurches forward.

Hell, down here, it’s the Old Testament “eye for an eye?” … right?

Conversely, you’re labeled a bloodthirsty fascist if you express empathetic support for the desire of a victim’s family to see a murderer put to death or agree that some killers are best served with a last taste of their own medicine.

No, those are all topics for another day, maybe on a barstool or at some loud party.

Rather, what struck this reporter throughout such a drawn-out process was the waiting. I chose to mention my own experience of toiling around the media center first because it’s far and away the least important.

Even before I was born the year after her murder, Elizabeth Sennett’s family was waiting for justice. The state of Alabama was waiting for the legal process to work itself to a conclusion and the family of Kenny Smith was waiting for another heart-wrenching tragedy.

The whole time — over 35-some-odd years later — Smith still waited. He waited roughly a decade to be convicted in 1998 for the murder-for-hire plot after an initial mistrial, then waited on death row to be executed by lethal injection, even seeing his accomplice in the murder executed by that method more than a decade ago.

And when the 2022 attempt on Smith’s life failed on that gurney in the death chamber at Holman Correctional Facility, he waited even longer as the state agreed to execute him by an untested method — a means initially chosen by Smith.

Nevertheless, Smith on Thursday was strapped to a gurney in that same execution chamber where the last attempt on his life failed and had an industrial-grade respirator mask placed over his face that pumped nitrogen gas through its tube until he died from hypoxia — the fancy term for the condition caused by a lack of oxygen.

Here’s how one media witness described the scene:

“[Smith] was laying on the gurney which was a slight incline. His arms were extended out from his side even with him in terms of height but angled downward with his hands toward the middle of his abdomen. He was dressed in the uniform that others incarcerated at Holman, a beige colored shirt, and pants. However, he was draped in a white sheet just below his shoulders.

He had two straps across him to keep him secure on the gurney. One was wrapped around his abdomen while a second was wrapped around his shoulders. Keep in mind that media witnesses could only see one half of his body because of their location. The arm that I could see was strapped to the extensions of the gurney where the arms went. It was strapped in two places; one was near the elbow and the second was around the wrist.

In terms of the mask, it looked like the mask that is pictured here. Looking at the mask from the front, on the right side is a vent that can be opened and closed. At the center is an opening that has been filtered, with tubing connecting to an opening in the mask on the left side. Several straps connect the face to the back of a net located at the back. Placed near the top of the elongated wall above and back is a digital clock. That clock would play an important role in the proceedings. The focus of the event was what happened to Kenneth Eugene Smith, but the clock would serve as its narrator, chaining the series of events that would ultimately lead to his death.”

The curtain in the viewing room went up at 7:53 p.m. and Smith’s last words were “Today, Alabama causes humanity to take a step backward,” which was followed by “I’m leaving with love, peace, and light. Thank you for supporting me. I love all of you.”

Smith also made an “I love you” sign in American Sign Language to those witnesses present on his behalf as he lay on the gurney before the valve on the nitrogen canister was twisted open.

Once the gas began to flow, the media witnesses reported that Smith appeared conscious for several moments, but shook and writhed on the gurney for about two minutes. This was followed by several minutes of deep breaths, slowly progressing to breathing that was no longer perceptible to the small group of media in attendance.

The five media witnesses who viewed this are all trusted journalists whom I deeply respect, but even a novice wallflower like me could see what they endured just by the looks on their faces when they returned.

When asked by Associated Press reporter Kim Chandler about these final moments of visible struggle, ADOC Commissioner John Q. Hamm said officials believed Smith was holding his breath as long as he could and began to twist and writhe with his restraints in the final throes of desperation.

Hamm then insisted any side effects displayed by Smith during his execution had been anticipated by the state following ADOC’s research into the method.

Good luck getting this reporter to believe that, but I digress.

The waiting was finally over, though — it was over for the media, over for the Sennett family, over for the state of Alabama and over for Kenny Smith and his family.

The Alabama Waiting Game

Regardless of how you view it through a political lens, the state of Alabama has wanted to execute Kenny Smith since a trial judge sentenced him to death after the jury recommended life without the possibility of parole.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall even took a cringe-worthy victory lap Thursday night in celebrating the killing, saying “Alabama has achieved something historic.”

“Like most states, Alabama has made the judgment that some crimes are so horrific that they warrant the ultimate penalty,” he said, completely missing the irony in such a tone-deaf and overly politicized statement. “But anti-death-penalty activists have worked to nullify that moral judgment through pressure campaigns against anyone assisting states in the process.”

For the top cop in our state, it’s not hard to see that ginning up fresh political capital is far more important than justice.

Marshall, whose political ambitions visibly extend far beyond his current office, has argued that opposition to Smith’s execution, and capital punishment in general, ignore how humane and effective the new nitrogen method is. Never mind that this pretty uneducated journalist could offer an easy argument against an elected official with no medical expertise making such an unfounded claim over such an untested method.

After all, just because you’re a state elected official who sees political utility in pumping the death penalty to fire up his base with empty and mean-spirited catharsis, this novice viewpoint doesn’t mean the beholder understands how to carry out a state execution in a way that is fair to everyone who has to witness it.

But then again, he said himself he doesn’t care about all that.

The facts be damned, Marshall also touted how easy the method was to carry out, with ADOC also saying in the press conference immediately after the execution that Smith writhing on the gurney was more performative than genuine.

And if you believe such flat assertions from an ADOC official leading the most historically corrupt state agency in Alabama, while still believing in the distorted menagerie of deep-state conspiracy theories peddled at the national level, then I’m not sure I’m qualified to help you address your hypocrisy.

“Despite the international effort by activists to undermine and disparage our state’s justice system and to deny justice to the victims of heinous murders, our proven method offers a blueprint for other states and a warning to those who would contemplate shedding innocent blood,” Marshall said on Thursday.

Marshall’s chest-pounding wholesale ignores the immutable notion that the threat of capital punishment — or legal consequences in general — has never once deterred anyone from committing the heinous acts he referred to.

If you want to better understand this, ask a cop, not a lawyer. Better still, ask a convicted murderer if they were worried about the consequences of their actions before they took a life.

The United Nations has no jurisdiction in Alabama, sure, but my home state of Alabama being condemned on the world stage is far too difficult to ignore for someone who cares about the outside perception of the place where I was born and still call home.

“He was writhing and clearly suffering,” U.N. Humans Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in Geneva on Thursday after Smith was pronounced dead in Atmore. “Rather than looking for novel, untested methods to execute people, let’s just bring an end to the death penalty. This is an anachronism that doesn’t belong in the 21st century.”

Smith was condemned to death for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire of Elizabeth Sennett after her husband, Charles Sennett Sr., first recruited Billy Gray Williams to murder his wife for the payout from an insurance policy.

Sennett was the pastor of the Westside Church of Christ in Sheffield and had reportedly fallen into deep debt while also having an extramarital affair. Williams then recruited Smith and Smith subsequently enlisted John Forrest Parker, according to newspaper accounts following their arrests.

Parker and Smith beat Elizabeth Sennett with a metal pipe and stabbed her to death with a six-inch survival knife in the family home in a rural part of southwest Colbert County. The duo then made an effort to steal certain things to make the killing look like a botched robbery.

When Charles Sennett Sr. learned he was a suspect a week later, he turned a gun on himself sitting in his truck, leaving Williams, Parker and Smith to face the consequences of his murderous plot.

“We got statements from them,” Colbert County Sheriff Buddy Aldridge said after the men were arrested. “In the statements, Billy Gray Williams alleged he was approached by Charles Sennett in late February or early March. He was offered $1,000 if he could find someone to hurt someone for him. From that meeting, Williams allegedly approached Smith, who in turn approached Parker.”

Smith would later tell investigators that following the murder, Williams — acting as an intermediary for Sennett — paid Smith and Parker a noticeably short $900 each.

Williams received a life sentence and died of an illness in prison in 2020. Parker and Smith were both given death sentences and Parker was executed by lethal injection in 2010.

This wasn’t before April 29, 1998, though, when a jury recommended Smith be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Despite the jury’s recommendation, a judge overruled the suggestion and instead sentenced Smith to die in the electric chair.

However, in 2002, Alabama carried out its last electric chair execution in killing Lynda Lyon Block, before the state made lethal injection its default execution method while allowing inmates to select electrocution as an alternative means for their execution if they so choose.

Parker’s last meal consisted of fried fish, french fries and iced tea. His final words were: “I’m sorry. I don’t ever expect you to forgive me. I really am sorry.”

As Patch previously reported, Smith was scheduled to meet the same fate in November 2022.

However, this attempt failed when officials carrying out the execution were unable to find the necessary veins before time expired on the execution warrant.

Still, even the secondary method of execution settled on by ADOC and Smith came with plenty of concerns — namely the possibility that Smith could vomit into the mask he would have to wear once the gas began to take effect.

Smith was reportedly in high spirits and optimistic, though, after already surviving one state-sanctioned attempt on his life, telling investigative reporter Lee Hedgepeth “The fat lady ain’t sang yet” in the days leading up to his execution.

But Smith was right to remember Alabama’s disturbing history of botched executions.

Those old enough will recall the 1983 execution of John Evans, which saw an electrode attached to his leg burst into flames, reportedly resulting in smoke and sparks coming out of the hood covering his head. All told it took the state of Alabama 14 minutes and three hellacious jolts of electricity to kill the convicted murderer.

Or maybe you remember the more recent execution of Torrey McNabb in October 2017?

This execution raised serious questions regarding the state’s lethal injection cocktail, which reportedly took 35 minutes to kill McNabb, who was able to move his arm and roll his head during the middle of his killing.

Since the federal death penalty was reimplemented in Alabama, the state has executed 73 offenders, including Smith. Republican Gov. Bob Riley is credited with more executions (25) than any two governors combined since the execution of Evans in 1983.

Smith’s death Thursday night brings the Ivey administration’s execution total to 15, making her second only to Riley.

The Smiths

Regardless of the brutality of Smith’s crime and the judicial labyrinth he found himself in over the last 35 years, his final 24 hours were reduced to a page and a half of names and the food he chose to eat.

Smith reportedly refused breakfast on Wednesday and received a lunch tray but did not eat and was later observed drinking a Mountain Dew and a Pepsi. He received an evening meal that night, which he partially ate, and also had some coffee.

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Smith had several visitors Wednesday, such as his spiritual advisor Rev. Jeffery Hood and several family members, including his wife and son.

On Thursday, he had many of the same visitors and was observed drinking coffee, Sprite and bottled water during the visit.

Smith also accepted breakfast Thursday morning on the day of his execution, eating two biscuits, eggs, grape jelly, applesauce and drinking orange juice.

For his final meal, which he accepted and ate sometime before the 10 a.m. cutoff set by ADOC, Smith chose steak, hash browns and eggs. This deadline for his final meal was due to concerns that Smith would vomit while wearing the mask in the execution chamber.

Even as he ate that final meal, though, Smith was still waiting — waiting on that final legal challenge to his death warrant.

Investigative reporter Lee Hedgepeth, who founded the long-form journalism startup Tread, has been an absolute force for change in more stories than I can count and was one of Smith’s chosen witnesses for his final hours and his execution.

“In the days and hours before Thursday’s execution, Smith spent time with his family and friends inside Holman,” Hedgepeth wrote. “There, surrounded by chipping paint, molding bathrooms, and bright-colored urinal deodorizers hung on the walls as air fresheners, the condemned man’s family squeezed whatever life and love they could from the time he had left.”

ALSO READ: ‘Never Alone’: The suffocation of Kenneth Eugene Smith by Lee Hedgepeth

Hedgepeth also wrote at length before the execution about Deanna Smith — Smith’s wife.

Hedgepeth penned:

“Alabama confiscated her Bible.

Deanna Smith’s pink leather-bound Bible had sat in front of her Tuesday morning in the visitation room at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, as she spoke about what the next few days might hold.

Soon, the State of Alabama will attempt — for the second time — to execute her husband, Kenneth Eugene Smith, for his role in the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett.

Less than an hour into Tread’s interview with Smith and his family, a correctional officer entered the room.

“You can’t have that in here,” the guard told Deanna.”

I don’t provide you with these anecdotes to convince you of the brutality of capital punishment or to sway you on any arguments of innocence for Smith. Rather, this should underscore the objective human nature of a tragic situation — one that saw every meme and hateful slur hurled like bile-filled hand grenades from behind keyboards in the years leading up to his execution.

The Sennetts

Mike Sennett was dressed down for the occasion, sporting a weathered trucker hat, blue jeans and a bright blue fishing shirt as he took to the podium in the little wood-paneled media center outside of Fountain Correctional Facility.

He was joined by his wife, along with his brother, Chuck, and his wife.

“Friday to Friday,” was how Chuck recalled the deaths of both of their parents in an interview with WHNT on the eve of the execution. “It’s not a burden anymore. … The burden is what’s going on down at the state. That’s the burden.”

But at the podium Thursday, Mike unfolded a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and read the family’s statement aloud to the media in the moments after Kenny Smith was executed.

“Nothing that happened here today is going to bring Mom back,” he said. “It’s kind of bittersweet today. I’m not going to be jumping around hooting and hollering, that’s not us. I’m glad this day is over.”

The Sennett boys seem to have made their peace with the role their father played in orchestrating the death of their mother and Charles Sennett Sr. was not mentioned once during the brief press conference.

Indeed, the ledger of those cited Thursday night by Mike Sennett included only three names: Billy Gray Williams, John Forrest Parker and Kenneth Smith. Regardless of their interpretation of the events, though, the waiting was over at last for a family who has grieved for decades.

“All three of the people involved in this case years ago, we have forgiven, not today but we have in the past,” Sennett said, fighting through tears. “If we’re to be more Christ-like and live His teachings and stuff, He forgave the ones on the cross, the thieves. And if I’m trying to live my life like him. It’s my duty and it’s a weight off my shoulders. I forgive them for what they done. The Bible says evil deeds has consequences and Kenneth Smith made some bad decisions 35 years ago and his debt was paid tonight.”

The waiting was finally over, regardless of what it took.

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and opinion columnist. He is also the founder and field editor of Tuscaloosa Patch. The opinions expressed in this column are in no way a reflection of our parent company or sponsors. Email news tips to [email protected].

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