A former US Marine, who confessed to raping and killing a 16-year-old girl in 2000, is to be executed Wednesday in the state of Mississippi.
Thomas Edwin Loden, 58, will receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. local time at Parchman Penitentiary, an overcrowded prison in this conservative state in the southern United States.
Thomas Edwin Loden had pleaded guilty to the kidnapping of Leesa Gray in 2000, who found herself isolated on a country road, her car having had a flat tire.
Ex-Marine and recruiter for this army corps, he had confessed to having raped Leesa Gray several times in his van before suffocating and then strangling her.
“I am sorry”
Thomas Edwin Loden had been discovered the next day on the side of a road with the words “I’m sorry” carved into his chest, according to court documents.
Thomas Edwin Loden was sentenced to death in 2001.
His execution Wednesday will be the first in Mississippi this year and the second since 2013, as the state has struggled in recent years to secure the lethal substances needed for executions.
He would become the 18th inmate executed in the United States in 2022.
Original article published on BFMTV.com