On the night of June 22, 2000, 16-year-old Leesa Marie Gray was abducted by Marine Corps recruiter Thomas Edwin Loden Jr. after she finished her shift at a restaurant in Dorsey, Mississippi. Loden held Gray captive inside his van, where he sexually assaulted her several times before he murdered her by strangling and suffocating her during the early morning hours of June 23, 2000. On that afternoon, Gray's naked body was found inside Loden's van, and Loden himself was found lying on the roadside with the words "I'm sorry" carved into his chest and self-inflicted cut wounds on his wrists.
In the following year of 2001, Loden, who waived his right to a jury trial, pleaded guilty to all six criminal charges, mainly capital murder, rape, and sexual battery, and he was sentenced to death for murdering Gray. Loden was on death row for 21 years before he was executed via lethal injection on December 14, 2022.
Abduction and murder On the night of June 22, 2000, in Dorsey, northeastern Mississippi, a 16-year-old schoolgirl was kidnapped outside her uncle's restaurant, and later raped and murdered by her abductor.Loden v. State , Supreme Court of Mississippi (United States).
According to official sources, the victim, 16-year-old Leesa Marie Gray, a student at Itawamba Agricultural High School, was working as a part-time waitress at her uncle's restaurant for the summer before the senior year of her high school. On that night itself, Gray completed her work shift and started heading home. However, along the way, Gray's car got a flat tire. It was at this point when a 35-year-old Marine named Thomas Edwin Loden Jr. (alias Eddie Loden) approached her at around 10.45 pm and began talking to her, assuring her that he was a Marine and he could help her settle the flat tire problem.
Allegedly, when Loden asked if Gray wanted to join the Marine Corps, Gray purportedly said she would never want to be a Marine. This enraged Loden, so he forced the teenager into the van. While holding Gray captive inside the van, Loden raped the girl and continually sexually abused her for over four hours. Reportedly, Loden even videotaped what was happening during Gray's captivity. In the early hours of June 23, 2000, around four hours after he had first abducted Gray, Loden strangled the 16-year-old victim to death.
Meanwhile, Gray's family members were alarmed when she did not return home after work. They began searching for her, eventually finding her car abandoned where she was abducted, with her purse was still inside the vehicle. Later that afternoon, Loden was sighted lying on the roadside with the words "I'm sorry" carved into his chest and with lacerations on his wrists, which he self-inflicted in a suicide attempt. Subsequently, Gray's naked body was discovered pushed under a folded-down seat of Loden's van, with her hands and feet bound. Itawamba County Coroner Shirley Davis conducted a post-mortem examination of Gray's body and determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation by manual strangulation.
Gray's rape and murder shocked the Dorsey community. It was further revealed that the relatives of Loden and Gray knew each other. Loden's aunt had sewn clothes for Gray's family in the past. One of Gray's relatives expressed that he felt sorry for Loden's family for the case's impact on their lives. Loden's wife, who lived in Vicksburg with their daughter, described Loden as a "good father and husband" and struggled to understand why her husband committed such a heinous crime. Over 1,000 people, including Gray's family and friends attended her funeral, which took place in the gymnasium of Itawamba Agricultural High School, where Gray had been a student.
Thomas Edwin Loden Jr. Background
Born on August 16, 1964, Thomas Edwin Loden Jr. was raised in Mississippi. Loden had a troubled childhood marred by physical and sexual abuse. Loden's mother was 17 when she married his father, and the marriage ended in divorce when he was a toddler. Loden witnessed his father physically and sexually abuse his mother. He bounced between living with his parents, and suffered abuse from his stepparents. Loden was sexually assaulted by a church staff member while attending Bible school.
Loden developed suicidal tendencies during his childhood and attempted to kill himself several times. He also struggled with substance abuse. Loden would go on to live with his grandparents at their farm in Itawamba County, where his circumstances improved. Despite his upbringing, Loden performed well in school. In 1982, Loden graduated from Itawamba Agricultural High School, the same school Leesa Marie Gray would later attend.Loden v. State , Supreme Court of Mississippi (United States).
After completing high school, Loden joined the United States Marine Corps, where he would serve as a Marine for 18 years. At the time of Gray's murder, he had attained the rank of gunnery sergeant. Loden had an exemplary record in the military and received multiple awards during his career. Loden was a Gulf War veteran and during his deployment, witnessed the death of a close friend and others in his unit. These traumatic incidents led to him developing alcohol and substance abuse issues. Loden began to suffer with social anxiety and gradually became estranged from his loved ones. A psychologist cooperating with Loden's defense counsel diagnosed Loden with post-traumatic stress disorder due to childhood trauma and his experiences during the Gulf War.
Loden was married three times, with his first two marriages failing due to infidelity. He met his third wife in Virginia in 1995. During this time, Loden became a member of the Marine Corps’ Anti-Terrorism Security Team. The couple married in Virginia and had a daughter. Loden moved back to Mississippi with his third wife and daughter, and settled in Vicksburg where he worked as a recruiter for the Marines. By the time of Gray's murder, he was estranged from his wife.
Charges and trial On June 24, 2000, Loden was charged with one count of capital murder, one count of rape and four counts of sexual battery. For the charge of capital murder under Mississippi state law, Loden faced a death sentence or life in prison with or without the possibility of parole. During his incarceration, Arkansas state authorities suspected that Loden was responsible for the murder of another teenage girl. Mississippi state authorities were contacted in regards to the case, but Loden was never charged.
In June 2001, due to the publicity surrounding the murder in Itawamba County, Loden's case was transferred and he stood trial at the Rankin County Courthouse.
On September 21, 2001, Loden waived his right to a jury trial and pleaded guilty to all six charges. He was convicted of the rape and murder of Leesa Marie Gray.
Loden chose to forgo jury sentencing and opted to be sentenced by the trial judge. He pleaded no contest to the state's evidence and did not present a mitigation plea. Prior to his sentencing, Loden personally addressed the court and Gray's family, saying: "I hope you may have some sense of justice when you leave here today."
Circuit Judge Thomas Gardner found that in accordance with Mississippi law, the four aggravating factors that warranted the death penalty were all satisfied in the case of Loden, and the mitigating factors did not outweigh the aggravating factors. On the balance of the probabilities, Loden was sentenced to death for the murder of Leesa Marie Gray. For the remaining five charges of rape and sexual battery, Justice Gardner also imposed five consecutive sentences of 30 years' imprisonment, for an additional 150 years imprisonment.
Loden's appeals In July 2003, Thomas Loden Jr. submitted an appeal to vacate his plea of guilt with respect to the charge of murder, stating that he was represented by ineffective legal counsel and he was wrongly advised in pleading guilty and did not have adequate opportunity to make a mitigation plea and seek a life sentence rather than death. However, a circuit court in Mississippi dismissed the appeal, and in 2007, the Mississippi Supreme Court rejected Loden's appeal against the circuit court's ruling, affirming that Loden voluntarily and willingly submitted his plea of guilt and it was not due to ineffective legal counsel.
In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a follow-up appeal from Loden.LODEN v. MISSISSIPPI , Supreme Court of the United States (United States).
In 2010, Loden's second petition for post-conviction relief was dismissed by the Mississippi Supreme Court.
In 2013, Loden's plea for an evidentiary hearing before a federal judge was rejected by U.S. District Judge Neal Brooks Biggers Jr. of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.Loden v. Epps , United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi (United States). Loden appealed against this decision in 2014.
In March 2015, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Loden's petition for a re-trial. In November 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court also refused to hear another appeal from Loden.
In February 2016, Loden and two other death row inmates – Ricky Chase and Richard Jordan – appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and challenged the state's lethal injection protocols, and it was dismissed. A motion for a re-hearing in this case was also rejected June of that same year. At this point in time, Loden and Jordan had exhausted all their appeals and the state Attorney General could apply to the Mississippi Supreme Court to set execution dates for both of them.
In 2017, the Mississippi Supreme Court rejected another appeal from Loden for post-conviction relief.Thomas Edwin Loden JR v. State of Mississippi , Supreme Court of Mississippi (United States).
In 2018, Loden appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court and challenged the Mississippi Department of Corrections' use of midazolam in its lethal-injection protocol and claimed that administering the wrong amount of the drug would not subject the convict to a sufficient level of unconsciousness so as to not feel any pain, and it constituted as a cruel and unusual punishment to subject the convict to severe pain during the execution procedure. The Mississippi Supreme Court thereafter ruled against Loden and rejected the petition, since similar arguments raised in a precedent case was also dismissed by an Oklahoma court.Loden v. State , Supreme Court of Mississippi (United States).
Death warrant In August 2017, Attorney General Jim Hood expressed his intention to seek an approval of Thomas Loden Jr.'s death warrant after the Mississippi prison officials confirmed that they obtained new drug supplies to facilitate the lethal injection executions. At this point in time, due to legal challenges and drug shortages, an unofficial moratorium on executions was ongoing in Mississippi since 2012 after Gary Carl Simmons Jr. was last executed for murdering a local drug dealer in 1996. The moratorium lasted for nine years before the state resumed executions in 2021; 50-year-old David Neal Cox, who was found guilty of murdering his estranged wife in 2010, was executed on November 17, 2021 after waiving his right to appeal.
On October 4, 2022, 21 years after Loden was first condemned to death row, the Mississippi Attorney General filed a motion to the Mississippi Supreme Court, seeking an approval of Loden's death warrant. While the state was seeking to schedule the execution date of Loden, Loden and four other death row inmates were involved in a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol and its use of a three-drug lethal injection to execute criminals. The lawsuit was originally rejected by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before it was sent back to the district courts for re-hearing, and it was still unresolved. The Attorney General's office revealed in a statement that the lawsuit was "not an impediment to setting Loden’s execution".