By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 29, 2008

President Bush yesterday approved the execution of an Army private convicted of a string of vicious murders and rapes in North Carolina, marking the first time in half a century that a president has affirmed a military death sentence.

Bush agreed to a request from the secretary of the Army to execute Ronald A. Gray, who has been on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since 1988.

"While approving a sentence of death for a member of our armed services is a serious and difficult decision for a Commander-in-Chief, the president believes the facts of this case leave no doubt that the sentence is just and warranted," White House press secretary Dana Perino said in a statement.

Unlike with other types of executions, the president must sign off on a military death sentence. The last such approval came in 1957 from Dwight D. Eisenhower, who approved the execution of an Army private who raped and attempted to kill an 11-year-old Austrian girl. In 1962, John F. Kennedy refused the execution of a Navy seaman and commuted his sentence to life in prison.

Gray was convicted by civilian and military courts in connection with four killings and eight rapes in the Fayetteville, N.C., area from 1986 to 1987. Some victims were shot, and others were bound, gagged and stabbed, testimony showed.

Gray was given eight life sentences by state courts in North Carolina and was then convicted by a general court-martial at Fort Bragg for two murders, an attempted murder and three rapes in 1988.

Perino said "additional legal challenges are expected" in the case, and it is unclear when the execution would be scheduled. It took four years after Eisenhower approved Pvt. John Bennett's execution before the soldier was hanged in 1961.