Jimmy Lee Gray murdered his girlfriend and a three-year-old girl before suffering a botched gas chamber execution in Mississippi so brutal it led the state to abolish the method
In the past, the gas chamber was the preferred method of execution in most US States, but the death of serial killer Jimmy Lee Gray changed all that. Even before committing the crime which would result in his capital punishment, Gray was already a notorious and violent criminal.
Known locally for committing petty crimes, Gray had a reputation as a violent child.
At just 19, this violent streak would reach a new level, with the twisted teen murdering his then 16-year-old girlfriend, Elda Louise Prince, in Arizona. He strangled her, slit her throat and dumped her body.
Despite the brutality of his actions, Gray was allowed to walk free after serving just seven years of a 20-to-life sentence. Less than a year after being released, he struck again.
On June 25, 1976, three-year-old Deressa Jean Scales would vanish after being left unattended outside for 10 minutes, reports the Mirror.
While her whereabouts was for a while a mystery, it soon transpired that the worst had happened. Gray had managed to lure the child into his car, driven to a wooded spot, sexually assaulted her and forced her face into mud until she suffocated.
When detectives questioned him, he cracked in an elevator, blurting out: “If I take you to her, will you help me?’, eventually leading police straight to the child’s body.
Even Gray’s own mother pleaded with the courts not to show leniency, penning a letter to officials urging them to “show no mercy.”
However, nothing could prepare witnesses for the horrific scene that unfolded in the old gas chamber at Mississippi State Penitentiary.
Behind the execution chair was a vertical steel pole. Crucially, there was no headrest, no strap, and thus nothing to prevent Gray’s skull from striking metal if he began to convulse.
At 12:10a.m., cyanide pellets were dropped into acid beneath his seat. As the deadly gas rose, Gray immediately started convulsing violently.
His face contorted in pain. His body strained against the straps. Then, with a sudden jerk, he threw his head backwards, repeatedly smashing his skull against the metal pole, each time moaning in agony.
As a number of horrified witnesses looked on, officials decided to evacuate the room as spectators couldn’t bear to witness the suffering.
Doctors reported that his heart continued to beat for a torturous 12 more minutes before he was finally declared dead. A leading execution expert later described the method as “so painful we wouldn’t use it on laboratory animals.”
Within a year, Mississippi moved to abolish gas executions for new sentences.
