The state of Arizona is preparing to execute death row inmates with the same chemical gas that was used in Auschwitz death chambers during the Holocaust.
The Arizona Department of Corrections has spent over $2,000 on the ingredients used to make the deadly cyanide gas.
According to documents obtained by The Guardian, the department purchased a solid brick of potassium cyanide in December for $1,530. It also bought sodium hydroxide pellets and sulphuric acid. When these ingredients are combined, the lethal gas is created.
Experts say that the gas chamber is the most dangerous and complicated method of execution. The prisoner is strapped to a chair in an airtight chamber before potassium cyanide pellets are dropped into a bath of sulphuric acid under the chair, creating the gas.
The Arizona State Prison Complex has a gas chamber that was built in 1949. It wasn’t used for 22 years. It is now being “refurbished” after the state has decided to restart executions.
They were stopped for seven years after the lethal injection of Joseph Wood in 2014 went horribly wrong.
However, documents reveal that a series of checks have been put into place at ASPC’s Florence Complex gas chamber. They included seals on windows and the door checked to make sure the room was airtight. Water was first used in the tests instead of any chemicals, while a smoke grenade was used to imitate the gas.
The state also used some shockingly basic tests, including prison officials checking for gas leaks with a candle.
The two inmates likely to be first to experience the new system, out of 115 on death row, are Frank Atwood and Clarence Dixon, both 65.
Atwood was sentenced to death in 1984 for killing an eight-year-old girl named Vicki Lynne Hoskinson. Dixon murdered Deana Bowdoin, a college student, in 1978.
Atwood’s lawyer, Joseph Perkovich, told the publication it is unfair for the state to hurry towards an execution when the investigation into his client’s innocence has been delayed.
Perkovich also said that “Frank Atwood is prepared to die. He is a man of Greek Orthodox faith and is preparing for this moment. But he does not want to be tortured and subjected to a botched execution.”
Although the state appears to be pressing ahead with its plans, the use of hydrogen cyanide is widely associated with the Nazis, who used the concoction under the name Zyklon B in extermination camps such as Auschwitz.
Republicans have this fascination with killing people. What terrible parents they had.
Why do you assume that these death row inmates are Republicans? One killed an 8 year old girl, the other a college student. These don’t sound like the actions of any specific political party to me, but the actions of deranged individuals. Oh…you mean the executioners, right? Huh. I sincerely hope that none of your loved ones are killed by criminals such as these. Perhaps you could offer to give them a nice hug instead.
At least we know the gas works. Unlike chemicals, it’s easier to make more. The first person that can snort it is that women who killed her boyfriend and then ran and lied about it. She’s a surplus semi human.
Not very responsible providing the recipe for this deadly gas.
i knew it in high school chemistry.
WHY DON’T THEY JUST SHOOT THEM AND BE DONE WITH IT. ALL 115 OF THEM PUT IN FRONT OF A FIRING SQUAD GET IT OVER WITH.
Great idea. A good question would be, how come its 40 plus years since the law was broken and they are still alive and you and I have supported them, all this time.
This is disgusting and should be stopped.
The Death Penalty should definitely be brought back and Used , i think gas is more humane than electricity or injection. However a gas gel helmet or mask would be a much safer way to administer the gas without creating enough gas to fill a whole room.
It is my understanding that a faster and more efficient method of carrying out “extreme prejudice” is available. ………The method entails Helium (from the local party store) to fill balloons . A sealed plastic grocery bag is placed over the condemned’s head,. The bag is anchored in place. The Helium is dispensed into the bag and within 30 seconds of breathing only Helium
the condemned is unconscious. After 2 minutes pass, death has taken place.
I believe the military has used this method, without governmental consent.
My heart just sank down into my chest reading about the gas chamber technique used to kill thousands of Jews during the holocaust. I wonder how long this type of execution takes to kill someone? I am not saying I disagree with “an eye for an eye”. No one has the right to take another person’s life in an act of premeditated murder! It’s a grim reality that we must face and live with.
those victims , didnt want to die either
The attorney said that his clients innocence is still being looked into why are they in a hurry? Is he for REAL? REALLY.? ….36 years and the other guy is 42 years and both are having their cases looked into in a hurry……not at all….They should have been executed years ago……..what the hell takes so long? What about their victims, anyone care about them?
The big difference here is that these are criminals that have been sentenced and living on death row for 50 years for killing and torturing kids. They deserve what they get. In Auswitch it was innocent people that did nothing wrong besides being disliked by a dictator. How does his lawyer think they are rushing when he been on the taxpayers dime for 50 years??
Funny how people don’t get the nuance. They murdered innocents.
Has them with the zyklon b and get them out of death row. South Carolina is going to firing squad and bring old sparky back the middle of this month.
So What ? If some one is found guilty of such a heinous crime that they are executed, (this crime must be very bad because our loving program for criminals al most makes it impossible to be correctly executed ) then we spend too much time worrying about hurting them hen we should be more quickly pulling the switch! MOST VICTIMS OF THESE SCUMBAGS HAD FAR MORE PAIN THAN ANY EXECUTION METHOD TO ELIMINATE THEIR TORMENTORS !
A reminder to Democrats that Auschwitz did really happen.
If it kills quickly who cares.
The Nazi chambers used a PESTICIDE, Zyklon-B, in the organophosphate class of chemicals, quite different from Cyanide, albeit as deadly. Too bad AZ isn’t using it, instead of cyanide. But all organophosphates are outlawed in the US, now, I’ve heard. The last “really deadly” 1 was banned in the fall of ’73, following a massive spill in CO earlier that yr. Killing kids, they deserve organophosphate poisoning.
Glad to see cyanide gas used for execution. Most of the sentenced do not deserve to just go to sleep. They deserve the pain and convulsions.
Zyklon B was an organophosphate “nerve gas”, more akin to pesticides in common use from the ’50s on in the US. The most dangerous were banned by the end of ’73, but milder “cousins” were still in use for many more yrs. Cyanide bonds with the red blood cells, more like CO does, preventing respiratory gas exchange, and “burns” the oral, nasal, and respiratory mucosa, causing swelling which results in suffocation. (Got educated about hazardous materials in my EMS district decades ago, after 1 very nasty encounter!)
Play the music of “Hang down your head Tom Dooly in open for all hanging event covered on national T.V. Just maybe it will discourage others from commiting such crimes.
To all the idiots who are so blood thirsty for an execution remember only God has the right to take a life. Killing them won’t bring back their victims. They need to rot in jail for the rest of their miserable lives.
No. Actually God gives a ruling government the right to execute criminals. Read Romans 13: 1 thru 5.
Not what the anti death penalty idiots expected when they pushed all the companies to stop making the painless injections so the states would stop executions. Well, guess what….
God does give government the right to execute murderers.
Read Romans 13:1-5
Apparently you are not really “4 freedom”. I’ve posted twice but you won’t post either. Nothing wrong or outlandish about either.
Thank you. Finally.