Licking, MO. – A man convicted of murder in the 1980’s died in the South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Missouri on Thursday.
Gary Gray, age 62, was pronounced deceased at the state prison at 11:29 p.m. on January 11, 2024. An autopsy is to be conducted to determine his cause of death.
Gray was convicted by jury in 1984 for the first-degree murder of 92-year-old Roy Keck of St. Joseph, Missouri the previous year. Gray and a second man, Norman Ballard, were charged for beating, torturing, and robbing Keck. The victim would succumb to his injuries 14 days later.
Both men were sentenced to life in prison for the crime. Ballard died at the Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point, Missouri in March 2008 at the age of 53 of natural causes.
