Mississippi seeks execution date in 2000 killing of teenager

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi attorney general’s office is asking the state to set an execution date for a former U.S. Marine Corps recruiter who was convicted in the 2000 rape and killing of a 16-year-old waitress. Thomas Edwin Loden Jr. is now 58. He has been on death row since 2001, when he pleaded guilty to capital murder, rape and four counts of sexual battery of Leesa Marie Gray. She disappeared on her way home from working in her family’s restaurant in northern Mississippi’s Itawamba County. Her body was found the next day in Loden’s van. Mississippi had its most recent execution in November. That was the first in nine years.