Parchment, MS (12/15/2022) – A Mississippi man who confessed to raping and murdering a 16-year-old girl was put to death on Wednesday, December 14, 2022.
Thomas Edwin Loden, Jr., 58, was executed by lethal injection in a Mississippi penitentiary 22 years after he was convicted and sentenced.
Leesa Marie Gray, a waitress, was stranded with a flat tire when Loden pulled up and pulled her into his van. Prosecutors said Loden spent hours raping and sexually assaulting Leesa before suffocating and strangling her to death.
Loden challenged the lethal injection protocol this month. However, a federal judge declined to block the State of Mississippi from carrying out the execution.
