US man fears he won’t live to see daughter’s killer executed

A frustrated Florida man is still waiting for justice from the US military 26 years after a an Army specialist raped and killed his daughter in a case that would mark the first execution of an American soldier in more than half a century.

Edward Bowman, 71, says he is afraid he might die before the US military carries out the 1988 death penalty handed to court-martialed specialist Ronald Gray in the rape and murder of Kimberly Ann Bowman Ruggles, according to Orlando Sentinel.

“Where is the justice?” Bowman said. “Before I leave this earth, I’d really like to see some kind of justice.”

Bowman told Orlando Sentinel that the three children his daughter left behind are now older than she was when her stabbed and naked body was found in a wooded area on Jan. 7, 1987, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

A medical examiner said Ruggles had been raped and stabbed, and bled to death. She was working as a taxi-cab driver near Fort Bragg, N.C., where Gray was stationed.

In July 2008, after all military-court appeals had been exhausted, then-president George W. Bush signed a required warrant, authorizing the death sentence for Gary, who was convicted of three other killings.

A federal judge issued a “temporary” stay of the execution two weeks before Gary was scheduled to be put down by lethal injection.

Bowman, the slain girl’s father, pleaded last month with US Rep. Daniel Webster to investigate the delay in Gray’s sentence.