Alabama executes Demetrius Frazier for the 1991 murder of Pauline Brown

February 6, 2025 – ATMORE, AL – the state of Alabama executed Demetrius Frazier for the capital murder of Pauline Brown. Governor Kay Ivey said that "rapists and murderers are not welcome in our streets."

The Governor's office announced that earlier this evening, Governor Ivey told Corrections Commissioner John Hamm that she would not exercise her clemency powers in this case and directed him to proceed with Mr. Frazier's lawfully imposed death sentence for the 1991 capital murder of Pauline Brown.

"In Alabama, we enforce the law," Governor Ivey said in a statement. "You don't come to our state and mess with our citizens and get away with it. Rapists and murderers are not welcome on our streets, and tonight, justice was carried out for Pauline Brown and her loved ones. I pray for her family that all these years later, they can continue healing and have assurance that Demetrius Frazier cannot harm anyone else."

The governor's office reported that Frazier's time of death was 6:36 p.m. at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama:

"For more than three decades, the family of Pauline Brown has waited for justice," said Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R). "Tonight, that wait is over. Demetrius Frazier was a monster who brutally took the lives of two innocent woman and left behind a trail of unspeakable violence. For the crimes he committed in Alabama, he was fairly and appropriately punished. While nothing can erase the agony he inflicted, I pray that this brings closure to those who loved Pauline and have endured the painfully slow wheels of justice for so many years."

"Frazier' and supporting activists made last-ditch efforts to transfer him back to Michigan to serve his 4 life sentences there and avoid his death sentence in Alabama," said Frazier. "These antics were unsuccessful. The Alabama Department of Corrections has now carried out four executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which has proven to be both constitutional and effective."

On September 1, 1991, Demetrius Frazier broke into the Detroit home of Jacqueline Gresham through a window and, armed with a knife and wearing Gresham's son's T-shirt over his face as a makeshift mask, and confronted her. Fearing for the safety of the children in the house, Gresham cooperated with Frazier, who brutally raped her multiple times over the course of the evening. As he left, he told Gresham that he had done this because of a bet, and he had won.

Following this attack, Frazier apparently left Michigan for California before ending up in Birmingham, Alabama.

On November 26, 1991, he saw a light in the ground-floor apartment of Pauline Brown, removed the screen, and let himself in. After searching the house for cash, he awakened Brown and raped her at gunpoint. While he was raping her, she begged him not to kill her, but he shot her in the head. Before leaving with less than $100, Frazier took a break to eat some bananas in Brown's kitchen.

Back in Detroit, in the early morning hours of March 8, 1992, Frazier forced fourteen-year-old Crystal Kendrick into a vacant house at gunpoint. At his direction, the child undressed, but when Frazier put down the gun to undo his pants, she bolted. Frazier grabbed the gun and chased Kendrick across the street, then shot her in the head. A passing driver found her naked body.

When Frazier was arrested in Detroit a few days later, he had numerous other cases pending; including the cases described above, he faced one count of second-degree murder, one count of felony murder, fifteen counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, one count of assault with intent to rape, four counts of breaking and entering, one count of robbery not armed, three counts of felony firearm possession, one count of possession of a concealed weapon, and multiple counts of being a habitual offender in the second-degree. While he was being interrogated, Frazier confessed to Brown's murder. Law enforcement in Detroit contacted the Birmingham Police Department, and a Birmingham detective traveled to Michigan to interrogate Frazier. At that time, Frazier made a recorded statement again confessing to Brown's murder.

In 1993, Frazier was convicted of his crimes against Crystal Kendrick and Jacqueline Gresham, for which he received four life sentences in Michigan. He was tried in Birmingham in 1995, convicted of capital murder, and sentenced to death. In 2011, through an executive agreement, Frazier was transferred back to Alabama so that his sentence might be carried out.