Murder of Vickie Deblieux

On the night of February 21, 1994, Vicki Lynn Deblieux, known as Vickie Deblieux, was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother's home in West Monroe, Louisiana, after being dropped off by a friend. While passing through Jefferson County, Alabama, she accepted a ride from a group of four youths — 19-year-old Carey Dale Grayson, 17-year-old Trace Royal Duncan, 16-year-old Louis Christopher Mangione, and 17-year-old Kenneth Loggins — who had been drinking and using drugs. The group diverted from the route into a wooded area under the pretense of picking up another vehicle.

According to the account, the youths assaulted Deblieux, throwing bottles at her and beating her when she tried to flee. Grayson and Loggins reportedly stood on her throat, and she died in the early hours of February 22, 1994. The group then transported her body and belongings to Bald Rock Mountain, where they took her ring and clothing, sexually abused her body, and threw it off a cliff. Three of the youths later returned and mutilated the corpse, stabbing and cutting it numerous times and amputating fingers and part of a lung. Deblieux's body was discovered by rock climbers on February 26, 1994; an autopsy attributed death to blunt force trauma with asphyxiation as a possible contributing factor. All four suspects were arrested and charged by April 1994 after one displayed a severed finger and described the killing to a friend.

Between November 1995 and February 1996, the four were tried separately in Alabama state courts. Duncan, Loggins, and Grayson were each convicted of murder and sentenced to death, while Mangione received a sentence of life without parole. Circuit Judge Mike McCormick formally imposed these sentences on March 8, 1996. Subsequent appeals by all four were unsuccessful through the early 2000s.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 ruling in Roper v. Simmons, which barred execution of offenders who were minors at the time of their crimes, Duncan's death sentence was commuted to life without parole in 2005, and Loggins's was commuted in January 2006. After the 2012 Miller v. Alabama ruling made mandatory juvenile life-without-parole sentences unconstitutional, Duncan and Mangione were later granted eligibility for parole hearings beginning in 2029, while Loggins was denied parole eligibility in 2018.

Grayson, who was 19 at the time of the crime, remained on death row. His federal appeals, including a habeas corpus petition and challenges related to lethal injection protocols, were unsuccessful. In 2024, Alabama sought and received approval for a death warrant specifying execution by nitrogen gas. Grayson's final legal challenges, including appeals to federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, were denied. He was executed by nitrogen hypoxia at Holman Correctional Facility on November 21, 2024, and pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. Deblieux's family expressed differing views on the execution, with her half-brother supporting it and her daughter opposing capital punishment.