MS Preps For Second Execution
Gov. Haley Barbour has rejected Mississippi death row inmate Rodney Gray’s petition for clemency, all but clearing the path for him to be executed Tuesday at the state penitentiary at Parchman.
Gray has been moved to a holding cell near the execution chamber and the prison was placed on lockdown Monday. The execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday.
In Barbour’s letter denying clemency Monday, he said he “found no justification to grant clemency or to interfere with the carrying out of the sentence; therefore the request is denied.”
Gray, now 38, was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1994 slaying of 79-year-old Grace Blackwell of Louin. Blackwell died from a shotgun wound to the head.
