Louisiana on Tuesday executed a death row inmate using nitrogen gas for the first time in state history and only the fifth time in U.S. history.

Death row inmate Jessie Hoffman’s execution is the first in Louisiana in 15 years after the state struggled to obtain drugs for lethal injections. Hoffman was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. after a “flawless” execution, according to Gary Westcott, secretary of the the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

Hoffman, who was convicted of the brutal rape and murder of 28-year-old Molly Elliott in 1996, had been arguing that he shouldn’t be executed by nitrogen gas, a controversial and largely untried method, partly because it he said it violated his religious freedom by preventing him from practicing his Buddhist meditative breathing.

Last week, a federal judge temporarily halted Hoffman’s execution, citing possible “pain and torture” in violation of his constitutional rights. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling on Friday. Hoffman’s attorneys appealed and on Tuesday shortly before the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop it in a narrow decision.

Until Tuesday, only one state, Alabama, had used nitrogen gas to put inmates to death. The state made history last year with its first such execution, and has conducted three others using nitrogen gas since.

“Tonight, justice was served for Molly Elliot and for the state of Louisiana,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a news conference after Hoffman’s execution. “Now he faces his ultimate judgment. Judgment before God.”

Hoffman’s attorney, Cecelia Kappel, said in a statement that the execution was “senseless” and that “we are better than this.”

“He was a father, a husband, and a man who showed extraordinary capacity for redemption,” Kappel said. “Jessie no longer bore any resemblance to the 18-year old who killed Molly Elliott.”

Here’s what to know about Hoffman’s execution, including more about the close Supreme Court decision and how Elliott’s family feels about the execution 29 years after losing the bright young woman.

Witnesses describe execution

Hoffman declined a last meal and did not say any last words before the nitrogen gas began to flow at about 6:21 p.m., according to execution witnesses who spoke at a news conference. The gas flowed for about 19 minutes, five minutes after state officials say he flatlined.

Hoffman was strapped to a gurney, and all but his head and forearms were covered by a thick blanket, they said.

“He did move. He did shake very briefly,” said Seth Smith, chief of operations for the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections. “Around 6:23 he did have some convulsive activity … After that, I personally didn’t see nothing that I would say is consistent with pain. He, in essence, was clinically dead very quickly.”

One of two media witnesses, Gina Swanson with WDSU-TV, said that she saw Hoffman twitch, clench his fists and his body jerk but said that “it was a clinical thing.”

“There was nothing really off-putting that made me feel like, ‘Well, that didn’t go right,'” she said.

What did Jessie Hoffman do?

Molly Elliott left work at her advertising firm in the French Quarter of New Orleans around 5 p.m. on Nov. 27, 1996, and walked to the Sheraton hotel garage where she parked her car. She was supposed to meet her husband at his office at 6 p.m. so they could go out to dinner together, police told reporters at the time.

Hoffman, who was just 18 years old and had worked at the garage for about two weeks, kidnapped her at gunpoint and forced her to withdraw about $200 from an ATM, prosecutors said. Even if Hoffman had let her go at that point, prosecutors said it would have been “the most horrific night of her life.”

“The ATM video tape shows the terror on Ms. Elliott’s face as she withdrew money from her account, and Hoffman can be seen standing next to his victim,” prosecutors said in court records.

After getting the cash, Hoffman forced Elliott to drive to a remote area of St. Tammany Parish as she begged him not to hurt her, prosecutors said, citing Hoffman’s eventual confession to the crime. Hoffman then raped Elliott and forced her to get out of the car and walk down a dirt path in an area used as a dump, prosecutors said.

“Her death march ultimately ended at a small, makeshift dock at the end of this path, where she was forced to kneel and shot in the head, execution style,” they said. “Ms. Elliott likely survived for a few minutes after being shot, but she was left on the dock, completely nude on a cold November evening, to die.”

Her husband identified her body after it was found on Thanksgiving Day, prosecutors said.