Former marine executed after horrific four-hour rape and murder of teen

A man who was on Death Row for over 20 years was executed after he was convicted of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl.

Thomas Edwin Loden Jr, 58, from Mississippi, USA, received a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary on Wednesday (December 14) for the murder of Leesa Marie Gray on June 22, 2000.

The execution of Loden Jr, a former Marine, was witnessed by Wanda Farris, the mother of the victim, the Daily Mirror reports.

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Loden had spent 21 years on death row after he pleaded guilty to the murder, rape and four counts of sexual battery against the teenager.

Despite a lawsuit from Loden backed by an additional four Mississippi Death Row inmates in an attempt to block the execution, a federal judge ruled it to go ahead.

In 2000, Gray had become stranded after work in the dark with a flat tyre as Loden approached her to help her and said: "Don't worry. I'm a Marine. We do this kind of stuff".

The 58-year-old then spent four hours sexually assaulting her before strangling and suffocating her after he said he became angry the teenager allegedly said she would never become a Marine.

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Following his guilty plea in September 2001, Loden told Gray's friends and family during his sentencing: "I hope you may have some sense of justice when you leave here today."

Wanda Farris, Gray's mother, said her daugher was a "happy-go-lucky, always smiling" teenager.

She added: "She wasn't perfect, now, mind you, but she strived to do right."

Mitzi Magleby, a spokesperson for the Mississippi chapter of Ignite Justice, an organisation that advocates for criminal justice reform said: "Clearly, something in him snapped for him to commit such a horrific crime.

"Mr Loden was immediately remorseful. Shouldn't there be room for grace and mercy in such a situation?"

Farris on the other hand, admitted that she had forgiven Loden years prior to his scheduled death but admitted that she does believe in the death penalty.

She said: "I don't particularly want to see somebody die. But I do believe in the death penalty, I do believe in justice."

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