{"id":30912,"date":"2022-10-10T17:48:13","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T17:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/10\/10\/state-wants-execution-date-for-marine-recruiter-convicted-of-murder\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T21:09:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T21:09:24","slug":"state-wants-execution-date-for-marine-recruiter-convicted-of-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/veterans\/2022\/10\/10\/state-wants-execution-date-for-marine-recruiter-convicted-of-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"State wants execution date for ex-Marine recruiter convicted of murder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Mississippi attorney general\u2019s office is asking the state to set an execution date for a former U.S. Marine Corps recruiter <\/a>who was convicted in the 2000 rape and killing<\/a> of a 16-year-old waitress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas Edwin Loden Jr., now 58, has been on death row since 2001, when he pleaded guilty to capital murder,<\/a> rape and four counts of sexual battery.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mississippi\u2019s most recent execution was in November 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to documents the attorney general filed Tuesday with the state Supreme Court, Loden kidnapped Leesa Marie Gray, who was stranded on the side of a road<\/a> in northern Mississippi\u2019s Itawamba County. Court records said Loden spent four hours repeatedly raping and sexually battering Gray before suffocating and strangling her to death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gray disappeared June 22, 2000, on her way home from working as a waitress at her family\u2019s restaurant in the Dorsey community. Prosecutors said she was last seen driving out of the restaurant parking lot. Relatives found her car hours later with her purse still inside and the hazard lights flashing.<\/p>\n\n\n\t