Morbid Fact Du Jour For June 24, 2011

Today’s Banging Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Jimmy Lee Gray was convicted of the murder of three-year-old Deressa Jean Scales in 1976, after kidnapping and sodomizing 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 on September 3, 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. Here is an account of his execution:

The gas rose quickly, in a concentrated, small cloud. Executioners Hocutt and Jones still had their masks on and raised them sat the same time that Gray took three deep breaths and moaned lightly. Gray’s head swayed from side to side, drunkenly, and fell back. A few second later, his head dropped forward easily, went upright and swayed, then dropped again. It stopped moving altogether and he appeared to lose consciousness. Less than a minute had passed….

“God damn,” screamed executioner Bruce, elated that the execution had gone so smoothly. “I told you she’d still work.” Then a huge belching noise came from inside the chamber, and the words, “Oh, Jesus, no,” came to Hocutt’s mouth as he looked away from Bruce to the chamber. Later, he wouldn’t be able to remember if he actually said those words, or if his friend Ronnie Fulcher said, “He ain’t dead, Donald” or just conveyed it with his eyes.

Gray’s head was up and his eyes were wide open. A yellow foam sizzled from his mouth, and he was bucking up against the straps with what seemed like a superhuman effort, then collapsing, almost shriveling, into the chair. Two long groans came from deep in his throat, followed by a horrible gasp, and Hocutt looking imploringly at the doctors standing to the right of the chamber. “He’s dead,” said the one running the EKG machine. Hocutt stepped past Bruce to check it himself. The green line seemed, if not flat, then awfully low. Gray’s head fell again, then rose a second later as his shoulders squared up. His face was now contorted and red veins bulged in his neck as he stared directly ahead, roughly in Bruce’s direction. Then he banged his head back against the pole behind the death chair. The noise it made was hollow, metallic, and sickening, and seemed to reverberate in the silence of the death house.

Gray’s head slammed back again, then again a minute later, then twice in succession, hitting the metal pole so hard the second time the chamber shook. The foam had stopped sizzling in his mouth, but he still stared ahead at Bruce, who stared striaght back.

Gray finally stopped breathing for good eight minutes after the execution began.

Culled from: The Last Face You’ll Ever See: The Culture of Death Row

Suffice to say, after this troublesome execution, they put padding around the metal pole so no one could cause such a fuss again.