Convicted Mississippi murderer, rapist Thomas 'Eddie' Loden executed by lethal injection

PARCHMAN -- At 6 p.m., the curtain rose in Room 54 of Building 17 at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. At 6:01 Thomas "Eddie" Loden spoke of remorse. At 6:03, Loden's eyes began to glaze over. At 6:05, his jaw dropped slightly. After seven more minutes of silence, Loden was pronounced dead at 6:12 by Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton.

Dressed in a red jump suit with a white undershirt, Loden was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday night at the Mississippi State Penitentiary.

"The drugs did their job. They did what they were supposed to do," said Burl Cain, the commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

It brings to an end a more than 20-year ordeal as Loden, now 58, pleaded guilty in 2001 to kidnapping 16-year-old Leesa Marie Gray from the side of the road, raping her and strangling her to death.

According to court documents, Loden kidnapped Gray, who was stranded on the side of a road in northern Mississippi’s Itawamba County on June 22, 2000. The documents said Loden spent four hours raping and sexually battering Gray before suffocating and strangling her to death.

Loden would later challenge that conviction in state and federal courts, claiming that he did not receive adequate legal counsel at the time, and that his attorneys did not consider how various events in his life could have led to mental illness. Each of those challenges were unsuccessful.

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Gray's mother, Wanda Farris, was on hand to witness her child's killer put to death. She did not address the media, following the execution. She walked out the side door.

In a last opportunity to speak from a white painted 9-foot by 12-foot room in Building 17, Loden made a statement just before the drugs were administered.

"If I could have a brief moment to let you know how deeply remorseful I am for everything I did," Loden said. "I know these are mere words and I cannot erase the pain that I have caused. I tried to do one good deed every single day the last 20 years to make up for the actions I know my actions took from the word. I hope that you can get some piece of closure and peace."

Then, in Japanese, he then said to his loved ones, "I love you."

Loden's attorneys said Loden hoped that he will be the last person executed in the United States.

"Mr. Loden asked that, on his behalf, we reiterate his great remorse for ending Leesa Gray’s life and the pain he has caused her family," Loden attorney Mark McDonald said. "Mr. Loden made numerous decisions throughout these proceedings that were driven by his desire not to cause further injury to Ms. Gray’s family, including his decision to plead guilty and not present evidence at trial in 2001."

It was just the second execution in the last two years. Prior to that, the previous execution was in June of 2012. Mississippi has executed 128 people since 1940.

After Loden's execution, there are 35 inmates, 34 of which are male, on death row. Of those, 21 are Black, 13, white, 1 Hispanic and 1 Asian.

Loden joined the Marine Corps immediately after graduating from high school in Itawamba County in 1982. He served in Operation Desert Storm and went to recruiter school in 1998. He achieved the rank of Gunnery Sergeant and received several commendations. Loden started operating the Marines’ recruiting office later that year in Vicksburg. A husband and father, he had no prior criminal record before the 2000 killing of Gray.

He was served his last meal was at 4 p.m. and requested 2 bone-in breaded and fried pork chops, baked sweet potato with butter, fried okra, Pillsbury grand biscuits with butter and molasses, peach cobbler with French vanilla ice cream and Lipton sweet tea.

"He was quite upbeat and he ate hearty. He actually stuffed himself," Cain said.

Cain said Loden cooperated fully with the team that strapped him down and prepared him with IVs in his arm that delivered the lethal mixture of drugs.

“There was absolutely no problem,” Cain said. “There was no problem with the process. The process worked perfectly. It went normally as far as that goes. I’ve seen it before several times. They were all the same. No glitch. No problem.”

Loden requested four visitors, which consisted of family and friends and visited with two attorneys. He also had two people on hand to view to the execution and visited with a mental health professional within 48 hours prior to Wednesday.

A federal judge declined to delay Loden's execution last week. Loden's attorneys had sought a stay from U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate because he is part of an ongoing years-long lawsuit challenging the state's lethal injection protocol.

Though Wingate acknowledged that the lawsuit, which was first filed in 2015, is unresolved, it does not grant Loden protection from his sentence, especially to a crime to which he pled guilty and has exhausted all legal options for appeal. Furthermore, Wingate wrote in his more than 30-page order, that granting a stay would likely delay that sentence for years, not merely months like attorneys for Loden had claimed.

Much concern has been made of Alabama's abandoned attempt to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith last month, citing legal maneuverings that created a late start and difficulties finding a vein for the lethal injection, the same reasons it gave for its failed execution of Alan Eugene Miller just two months before.

Jeworski Mallett, Deputy Commissioner of Insitutions said that the Mississippi Department of Corrections went to great lengths to make sure something like what happened in Alabama would not happen to Loden.

"We've had mock executions and drills and we do that on a monthly basis," Mallett said.

He said the last mock execution was Dec. 7 at the MDOC, the last of three weekly run-throughs leading up to the execution.

"We've done it more regularly leading up to (Wednesday)," Mallett said. "So, we were pretty confident leading up to the execution that everything would run smoothly."

Cain said his team was prepared for the job they did Wednesday and, "We are competent at our jobs."

Karei McDonald, the Executive Commissioner of Institutions for MDOC, said the day went as planned leading up to the execution.

"At 11:30 a.m., we went back and checked on the inmate. He seemed to be in good spirits and was very satisfied with the way he had been treated," McDonald said. "He wanted to make sure that we told everyone that he was very appreciative of the staff here and how they treated him up to today and today. He was very appreciative of the MDOC in general and how this has been handled."

Loden's body was released to Glenwood Funeral Home in Vicksburg.

Storms limited the volume of protesters earlier in the afternoon. Several showed up and voiced concerns over the death penalty late in the day.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi executes Thomas Loden, who killed 16-year-old Leesa Gray