US EXECUTES GULF WAR VETERAN IN THIRD FEDERAL EXECUTION

Jones was the third person--after Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and drug kingpin Juan Garza--put to death by the federal government resumed executions in 2001 after a 38-year suspension. The federal government handled the prosecution because the victim was abducted from a military base.
Jones, who had no prior criminal record, admitted kidnapping 19-year-old Pvt. Tracie Joy McBride from a Texas Air Force base, raping her and beating her to death with a tire iron. His attorneys said exposure to the gas caused severe brain damage that led him to kill.
In Jones´ final moments, he looked toward the room where the witnesses he had selected were watching and mouthed the words, ``I love you.´´ He did not look toward the room where McBride´s family watched. Asked by prison officials whether he had a last statement, Jones said: ``Although the Lord hath chastised me forth, he hath not given me over unto death.´´
He then began singing a hymn with the refrain, ``In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever ´til my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river.´´
As the execution time neared, about a dozen death penalty opponents held a candlelight vigil near the prison. No death penalty supporters were present.
A sign leaning against a fence in front of the group said, ``The tragic irony: As we rush recklessly to war with Iraq we are killing a veteran of the first Gulf War.´´
The White House and the high court refused Monday to block the execution after reviewing Jones´ nerve gas claims. White House officials declined to explain Bush´s decision, and the court did not comment.
In December 2000, after his conviction, the Pentagon informed Jones that he, along with about 130,000 other soldiers, may have been exposed to low levels of nerve gas wafting from a weapons depot troops destroyed near the southern Iraqi city of Khamisiyah in March 1991.