The execution of an Alabama man convicted in the 1998 murder-for-hire killing of a preacher’s wife was postponed on Thursday before the midnight deadline because state officials couldn’t identify a suitable vein for lethal injection.
According to Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm, employees at the jail attempted for an hour to connect the two requisite intravenous lines to Kenneth Eugene Smith.
After attempting multiple areas on the 57-year-old’s body, the attempts to install a second line were unsuccessful. Officials then attempted a central line, which entails inserting a catheter into a big vein.
