[4] Gray was born in Cochran, Georgia,[5] but grew up in Liberty City, a public housing project in Miami.

At the time of his arrest, he was stationed at Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, North Carolina, holding the rank of Specialist Four (E-4) and serving as a cook assigned to 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne.

Colonel David Armitage, a military forensic psychiatrist, also testified that in Gray's early life he had experienced:[7] Fairly substantial socioeconomic deprivation, multiple male figures in the home, multiple physical moves, living in substandard poverty conditions, [and] circumstances where the electric lights were turned out by the electric company because bills were not paid.

[9][10][11] On December 15, 1986, Gray abducted, raped, sodomized, and murdered Private Laura Lee Vickery-Clay, age 18.

The murder weapon, a .22 caliber pistol that Gray had stolen in November 1986, was found 60 feet from the victim's body.

Once inside, Gray grabbed Nameth, held a knife to her throat, and asked for her military field gear.

On the evening of January 6 Ruggles, a local cab driver was dispatched to pick up a passenger named "Ron" at Gray's address.

In the early morning of January 7, military police officers on routine patrol discovered Ruggles' empty cab parked at the edge of the woods.

[11] Ruggles' mouth was gagged with a cloth belt that matched a pair of black karate pants other police officers had found in Gray's possession hours earlier.

[1] One month later, Army Secretary Pete Geren set the execution date as December 10, 2008, and ordered that Gray be put to death by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.

United States Army Corrections Command will be responsible for conducting the execution, based on an agreement with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

On February 13, 1990, that court ordered a sanity board, which, on June 30, 1990, found that Gray was responsible at the time of the offenses and that he was competent to understand his trial and the present appellate proceedings.

On February 18, 1992, a report based on these tests was completed by Captain Fred H. Brown Jr., Ph.D., a clinical psychologist from Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg.

On March 9, 1992, counsel filed a petition for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence of lack of mental responsibility.

On April 8, 1992, the Court of Military Review heard oral arguments, and on December 15, 1992, denied the petition for a new trial and affirmed the findings and sentence.

[16] On November 13, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces issued a Per Curiam Opinion denying Gray's Writ of Error Coram Nobis with prejudice for lack of jurisdiction.

[17] On June 28, 2018, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear Gray's case, without giving a reason.