Thomas Edwin Loden, 58, is to be put to death at 6:00 pm Central Time (0000 GMT) by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.

Loden pleaded guilty to the June 2000 kidnapping of Leesa Gray, who had been stranded on the side of a rural road after her car had a flat tire.

Loden, a gunnery sergeant and recruiter for the Marine Corps, confessed to repeatedly raping Gray in his van before suffocating and strangling her.

He was discovered the next day lying by the side of the road with the words "I'm sorry" which he had carved into his chest, according to court records.

Loden was sentenced to death in 2001.

Loden would be the first person executed in Mississippi this year and the second since 2013.

He would be the 18th person executed in the United States this year.

About half of the 50 US states allow the death penalty but it has only been used in five states so far this year -- Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. Mississippi would be the sixth if Loden's execution goes ahead.

On Tuesday, Kate Brown, the governor of Oregon, commuted the sentences of the 17 inmates on Death Row in the northwestern state to life in prison.