Louisiana carried out its first execution in 15 years last night at Angola State Prison.
Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, was put to death using nitrous gas, which replaces oxygen with nitrogen and causes death by suffocation.
Officials said the coroner pronounced Hoffman dead at 6:50 p.m.
Hoffman was strapped to a gurney and fitted with a respirator mask as pure nitrogen gas was pumped into the mask.
Nitrogen gas had previously only been used four times for executions, all of them in the state of Alabama.
The execution faced multiple legal hurdles before ultimately being carried out.
Officials said that Hoffman was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Mary “Molly” Elliot in St. Tammany Parish. At the time of the murder, Hoffman was 18, while Elliot was 28. According to court documents, Hoffman admitted to kidnapping Elliot from a parking garage in New Orleans. Officials said he forced the victim to drive him to an ATM to withdraw money and then take him to St. Tammany Parish. Hoffman then raped her and shot her execution style on a dock near the Middle Pearl River.
Right now, Louisiana has more than 60 inmates on death row.
