Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith has execution date set for January – and will be the first to die by nitrogen gas

Kenneth Smith, 58, is set to die by nitrogen hypoxia in late January, nearly 35 years after he and another carried out the hit on 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett

Accomplice John Forrest Parker, died by injection in 2010 – a fate that awaited Smith last year but was called off when workers failed to kill him by midnight

Smith blocked the state’s next attempt to execute him by injection, citing cruel and unusual punishment when he was poked with needles for hours in 2022

Alabama will become the first place in the world to carry out an execution using nitrogen gas – after setting an execution date for a man convicted in a grisly murder-for-hire slaying.

Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, is now set to die by nitrogen hypoxia – or suffocation by nitrogen gas – on January 25, nearly 35 years after he and another carried out the hired hit on a 45-year-old preacher’s wife, Elizabeth Sennett.

His accomplice, John Forrest Parker, died by lethal injection in 2010 – a fate that awaited Smith last year but was called off because workers were unable to start an intravenous connection before the execution warrant expired at midnight.

That rule was pulled months later, allowing Governor Kay Ivey to do away with midnight expirations on such warrants. Smith then blocked the state’s next attempt to execute him by injection, citing cruel and unusual punishment when he was poked with needles for hours during their attempt to tap his veins.

The contract killer instead opted to die by nitrogen – an untested method that will be administered for at least five minutes via gasmask, before which the inmate will have the chance to make a final statement before the gas begins to flow, officials said.