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Thread: Jimmy Lee Gray - Mississippi Execution - September 2, 1983

  1. #1
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    Jimmy Lee Gray - Mississippi Execution - September 2, 1983




    Jimmy Lee Gray was born in Whittier, California on September 25, 1948




    Facts of crime: Jimmy Lee Gray (born in Whittier, California on September 25, 1948) was convicted for the murder of three-year-old Deressa Jean Scales in 1976, after kidnapping and anally raping her. At the time of this murder, he was free on parole following a conviction in Arizona for the murder of a 16-year-old girl.

    He was executed in 1983 by the State of Mississippi by gas chamber. He became the first person to be executed in Mississippi since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated.

    Dan Lohwasser, a reporter for United Press International, was one of the observers who witnessed Gray's execution. Lohwasser's account of Gray's death sparked a controversy, because of its graphic nature. At the time of Gray's execution, the gas chamber used in Mississippi had a vertical iron bar directly behind the inmate's chair. There was no headrest or strap used to restrain Gray's head. As Gray began breathing in the toxic gas, he started thrashing his head around, striking the iron bar repeatedly before he finally lost consciousness. Officials decided to clear the observation room eight minutes after the gas was released, due to the graphic scene. The decision to clear the room was sharply criticized by Dennis Balske, Gray's attorney. "Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against a steel pole in the gas chamber while reporters counted his moans (eleven, according to the Associated Press)".

    In part due to the fact that Gray's execution by lethal gas was botched in this instance, Mississippi passed legislation making lethal injection the sole method of execution for inmates sentenced after 1 July 1984, though three more inmates (Edward Johnson, Connie Evans and Leo Edwards) sentenced before this date were still executed by lethal gas. Mississippi's gas chamber was decommissioned in 1998.

    Last meal: A plate of Mexican food (he was given tortillas), salad, milk and a bowl of strawberries.

    Final statement: None

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    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    September 3, 1983

    FATHER SAYS EXECUTION WON'T ERASE HIS MEMORIES

    Jimmy Lee Gray was executed in Mississippi's gas chamber and buried today, but the father of the little girl he raped and suffocated says that will not erase his tormenting memories.

    ''Even in prison he had been able to talk, to breathe and to laugh and he had taken all these things from my little girl,'' said Richard Scales of Dallas, Tex. ''He didn't have the right to continue living.''

    Mr. Gray died shortly after midnight at Parchman State Penitentiary for the slaying of 3-year-old Deressa Jean Scales, who was kidnapped from her family's apartment in Pascagoula, Miss., on June 25, 1976.

    He drove her to a remote area on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, raped and sodomized her, killed her by holding her head in a muddy ditch and then threw her body from a bridge into a creek. It Was Second Slaying

    At the time of the girl's death, Mr. Gray was on parole after serving seven years of a 20-year prison term for killing his 16-year-old girlfriend, Elda L. Prince, in Parker, Ariz.

    Mr. Gray's own death came amid white wisps of lethal cyanide gas freed beneath his black metal chair in the stainless steel chamber.

    The 34-year-old prisoner, dressed in a red jump suit, appeared to inhale deeply. His body jerked violently at the leather straps binding his arms, chest and legs. and his head slumped forward, then pitched backward, a sequence repeated a number of times over eight minutes. Mr. Gray moaned 11 times before falling silent.

    Doctors listening to his heart through a remotely monitored stethoscope said that despite his continued body spasms, Mr. Gray was dead within two minutes after the lethal gas began to rise beneath him.

    'Painful Death' Seen

    A gold-colored hearse took Mr. Gray's body from the prison to a funeral home at Indianola, about 40 miles away. The body, claimed by a Natchez church group that had befriended Mr. Gray, was buried in an undisclosed plot after an unannounced 7 A.M. service.

    Dennis Balske, an Alabama lawyer who Thursday lost an 11th-hour plea for the United States Supreme Court to block the execution, said after watching that Mr. Gray had suffered a ''painful death.'' Mr. Balske's appeals had challenged the gas chamber as cruel and unusual punishment.

    Mr. Gray, who in his younger years had a reputation of being a loner with a violent temper, spent his final hours visiting with friends and ministers. His mother, who had twice called on the Mississippi authorities to execute her son, telephoned Mr. Gray hours before his death, officials said. He also talked by telephone with his father and brother, all from outside the state.

    His final meal was a plate of Mexican food. Later, after a communion service, he ate a pizza brought by ministers. Then he walked into the gas chamber with head bowed, never looking up as he took his place on the death seat and guards strapped him in.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/03/us...-memories.html
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