Murder of Vickie Deblieux
| Date | February 21 – February 22, 1994 |
|---|---|
| Location | Jefferson County, Alabama, U.S. |
| Deaths | Vickie Deblieux, 37 |
| Convicted | Carey Dale Grayson, 19 Kenneth Loggins, 17 Trace Royal Duncan, 17 Louis Christopher Mangione, 16 |
| Convictions | Capital murder (all 4) |
| Sentence | Grayson Death (1996) Loggins Death (1996), commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole (2006) Duncan Death (1996), later commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 35 years Mangione Life in prison with the possibility of parole after 35 years |
On February 21, 1994, in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States, 37-year-old Vickie Deblieux (April 18, 1956 – February 22, 1994) was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by a group of four youths while she was hitchhiking from Tennessee to her mother's house in Louisiana. Deblieux's body was discovered four days after the murder, and the police later managed to arrest all four killers responsible.
One of the four perpetrators, Louis Mangione, who was 16 at the time of the murder, was given a life sentence, while the remaining three members of the group were sentenced to death for murder. However, two of them, Kenneth Loggins and Trace Duncan, were 17 at the time of the offense. Their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in 2006, after Alabama agreed to change the law and prohibit the execution of minors younger than 18 at the time of their offenses, leaving the final member, Carey Dale Grayson, to remain on death row.
Grayson's death warrant was approved by the Supreme Court, and he was executed by nitrogen gas inhalation on November 21, 2024. Grayson was the third person to undergo execution by nitrogen gas in Alabama, after Kenneth Eugene Smith and Alan Eugene Miller.