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A native of Miami, born in 1966, Gray joined the U.S. Army at age 18 and was trained as a cook. In 1986, he was posted to Fort Bragg, outside Fayetteville, North Carolina, and his arrival on the base unleashed a sudden reign of terror. On April 29, 1986, 24-year-old Linda Coats was found dead in her trailer at Fayetteville, killed by a shot to the head after suffering sexual abuse . A university student enrolled in the army's ROTC program, Coats was scheduled to receive her commission the week she was murdered. A few days later, soldiers on the Ft. Bragg military reservation found the naked, battered corpse of Teresa Utley, a Fayetteville prostitute. Abducted from the streets where she plied her trade, Utley had been stripped and beaten, raped and knifed to death by her assailant. On November 16, 1986, two Fayetteville women were abducted at gunpoint by a black man who raped them both, while threatening their lives. Neither victim reported the attack to police, but one staked out the neighborhood with her boyfriend, fingering Ronald Gray as her attacker on November 26. Still terrified, she kept the knowledge to herself. By that time, Fayetteville's resident stalker had struck again, abducting a young woman on November 22, raping her and slashing her about the face and body, leaving her for dead in suburban Bonnie Doone. A female soldier was attacked the same night, at Fort Bragg, but both victims survived, and their assailant remained at large. He raped and stabbed another soldier on the base a few days later, but MPs had nothing that would bring them closer to a suspect. On December 12, a soldier's wife, 18-year-old Tammy Wilson, was abducted from her home in Bonnie Doone. Her naked body was discovered hours later by her husband, in some nearby woods. She had been raped and shot at point-blank range. Three days later, Sgt. Michael Clay was called home from maneuvers to inspect the smoking ruins of his mobile home in Fayetteville. His wife, Pvt. Laura Clay, was missing from the scene, and five more weeks would pass before her body was recovered from the nearby forest. In the meantime, yet another female soldier was attacked on January 3, but she survived. Kimberly Ruggles, a 23-year-old Fayetteville cab driver, was less fortunate on January 7. Officers were still examining her taxi, found abandoned on a city street, when searchers on the Ft. Bragg reservation found her body. Raped and beaten, she had died when her assailant drew a knife across her throat. The latest slaying prompted two surviving victims to report their own attacks, and one of them identified a suspect for police on January 8. After six months of investigation, Ronald Gray was formally indicted by civilian authorities on 23 felony charges, including two counts of first-degree murder (Coats and Wilson), five counts of first-degree rape and first-degree sex offense, four counts of first-degree kidnapping , two counts each of first-degree burglary and armed robbery, plus one count each of second-degree arson , attempted first-degree rape, and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. Held in lieu of $420,000 bond, he was subsequently charged, on August 7, with two counts of murder (Clay and Ruggles) and two counts of attempted murder on a military reservation. On November 5,1987, Gray pled guilty to all charges in Fayetteville, receiving three consecutive terms of life imprisonment. Convicted on all remaining counts at his court-martial, on April 12, 1988, he was sentenced to death for the crimes committed at Ft. Bragg. |
