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Mississippi prison where the executed man was held
Photo: Rogelio V. Solis/AP
The US state of Mississippi has carried out the death penalty on a convicted murderer.
Thomas Loden, 58, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. Wednesday at Parchman Jail.
He had previously been injected with a lethal dose of drugs.
Loden was found guilty in 2001 of murder and rape, among other things.
Since then he has been on death row.
He had confessed to killing and raping 16-year-old Leesa Gray.
In June 2000, the teenager in northeast Mississippi had a flat tire.
Loden, a Marine with relatives in the area, stopped at around 10:45 p.m., the court is convinced.
He forced Gray into his van and sexually assaulted her for over four hours, he later told police.
Eventually he murdered the woman.
He tells investigators that he got angry because Gray said she couldn't imagine being a Marine.
The next day, the perpetrator was found by the side of the road with the words "I'm sorry" scratched into his chest and other injuries.
"I believe in the death penalty"
Before his execution, Loden said he felt a "deep guilt."
He knew that words could never heal the damage he had done.
The mother had told journalists last Friday that she had forgiven the perpetrator.
She really didn't want to see anyone die, she said.
"But I believe in the death penalty."
It was Mississippi's first execution this year and the second since 2013. The conservative-governed state has struggled for several years to obtain the drugs used for executions.
Many manufacturers refuse to sell their products to US states that enforce the death penalty.
So far, 18 people have been executed in the US in 2022.
There were 11 executions last year, the lowest number in more than three decades.
A majority of Americans still support the death penalty.
However, approval has declined.
About six in 10 Americans identify themselves as supporters, according to the General Social Survey, a major trend poll conducted by the University of Chicago.
In the 1990s, nearly three-quarters of Americans were in favour.
jpz/AP