A former US Marine who confessed to the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in 2000 will be executed on Wednesday in Mississippi, AFP reports.

An execution chamber with lethal injection in TexasPhoto: Texas Department of Criminal Justice via Bestimage / Bestimage / Profimedia

Thomas Edwin Loden, 58, will be given a lethal injection at 6:00 p.m. local time (00:00 GMT) at the overcrowded Parchman prison in the conservative southern US state.

Loden pleaded guilty to abducting Lisa Gray in 2000 when she was stranded on a country road after her car broke down.

A former Marine and Army recruiter, he admitted to raping Gray several times in her van before strangling and strangling her.

According to court documents, Thomas Edwin Loden was found the next day on the side of the road with the words “I’m sorry” etched into his chest.

In 2001, Loden was sentenced to death.

His execution will be the first in Mississippi this year and the second since 2013, as the state has struggled in recent years to procure the lethal substances needed for executions.

He will become the 18th inmate executed in the United States in 2022.

The death penalty is legal in nearly half of the 50 US states, but this year it was carried out in only five states: Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.