Rusty Benson

AFA Journal associate editor

Second in a series. Read Part 1 here.

September 2002 – Kat and Tom Loden had big plans. Soon he would retire from the Marines and become a gentleman farmer. She would go to law school at Ole Miss. They would build their dream house on the 175-acre farm near the rural community of Dorsey in Northeast Mississippi where Tom had grown up. Life would be idyllic at “The Refuge,” the name they had chosen for their new home.

It was a wonderful dream. After all, the farm on Ballardsville School Road was where Kat had fallen in love with Tom (known as “Eddie” in his hometown) and where they had spent some of the happiest days of their courtship and five-year marriage. It seemed like the perfect place to raise their three-year-old daughter and her future siblings.

But the dream ended in a nightmare on June 22, 2000, when Tom, a Marine recruiter stationed in Vicksburg, Mississippi, kidnapped a local 16-year-old girl, then drove her to the farm where he raped, tortured and murdered her. 

He eluded law enforcement for less than 24 hours. The area-wide manhunt ended when a passerby found the Desert Storm veteran lying in a ditch off a county road just north of the family farm. He had cut his arms in a failed suicide attempt and used a broken bottle to carve a bloody “I’m Sorry” into his chest. 

At trial Loden pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping, rape and sexual battery. He now awaits the ultimate vindication of Leesa Marie Gray’s death that Mississippi justice provides – lethal injection.

Two years later, family and friends of both the victim and the perpetrator cope with lives that will never be the same. 

For Kat, now divorced from Tom, the moments and events surrounding the tragedy are always fresh with guilt, sadness, anger and confusion. 

But one thing about which she is not ambivalent is why.

• • •
Kat was moonlighting as a blackjack dealer at a Virginia Beach casino when she met Tom, a 6’4” chisel-jawed Marine with a dark complexion and piercing green eyes. He was a man’s man and she liked his easy-going manner. The relationship progressed quickly and the couple were soon married.

She knew Tom was “a little [sexually] deviant” but figured marriage would change that. However, his appetite for hard core pornography grew. On several occasions she recalls being shocked by the sexual content of Internet sites and chat rooms he visited, including child pornography.

Violent fantasies became part of his growing obsession. “He was always saying that he was going to hide in the house, act like a burglar and rape me,” Kat said. There were also incidents of sexual escapades with other women, some recorded on video. Large sums of money – as much as $1,200 in one month – were regularly missing. 

Marriage counseling was ineffective because Tom never admitted he had a problem. On the contrary, he sometimes blamed Kat for their marriage problems, accusing her of questioning his honesty.

Hard core pornography, along with sexually acting out, was becoming the center of Tom’s life and it was tearing their marriage apart. “I began to feel like I was married to a man I didn’t even know,” Kat said. “It was what our fights were about all the time. In everything else we had a great marriage, but in this, he was out of control.”

• • •
“Sexual addiction is progressive if not treated,” says Dr. Lynn Wildmon-White, founder and director of Esther Ministries. “It may start with soft porn, like Playboy, but soon that’s not enough. Harder and more deviant material is required, then acting out with others and eventually crimes against others can occur.” 

Natalie* began to witness that downward pull of pornography in her husband’s life around 1994 when he began bringing home X-rated videos to enhance their sex life. About the same time the family subscribed to America Online Internet service. Soon Natalie discovered that William*, a business executive, was visiting Internet porn sites and communicating with women in “chat” rooms. When confronted, William begged Natalie’s forgiveness and promised to stop.

Although she wanted to believe William’s sexual obsessions were under control, in 1997 Natalie found proof that on business trips her husband of 23 years was making phone calls to women.

Then on a weekend business trip to a conference, a co-worker charged him with sexual harassment and he lost his job. Natalie thought the experience would scare William into cleaning up his act. It did, but only temporarily.

Early last December Natalie was decorating the Christmas tree when she received the phone call informing her that William had been caught in an online sting operation and arrested for soliciting a minor for sex. Though he is now in counseling, William faces up to six years in prison. 

“It hurts too much to tell yourself the truth about what your husband is involved in,” says Wildmon-White, who understands a wife’s denial from both professional and personal experience. “Wives believe they can fix their husbands with love and support. They think if they were just prettier, thinner or sexier, then he wouldn’t need porn or other women.”

For a wife, the result is often years of denial of the seriousness of her husband’s addiction punctuated by cycles of getting caught and promising to change. “She desperately wants to believe him, so for the first 50 times or so, she does. Wives, like their husbands, have to hit bottom before they seek help. The problem is that in many cases the damage in someone else’s life has been done,” said Wildmon-White.

• • •
June 22, 2000 – Just before lunch Kat received an E-mail from her bank informing her that her checking account was nearly overdrawn. She called the Ballardsville Road farm – where Tom was visiting his grandmother – to discuss the situation. That’s when she learned that investigators had arrived to question him about the disappearance of a local teenage girl.

“As soon as I heard there was a young girl missing, I instantly knew Tom could be involved,” Kat said. Her suspicions were based on his frequent visits to Internet porn sites that featured underage girls. 

Kat’s first thought was that her husband had seduced a young girl and that they were hiding in the woods. Never did she suspect that Tom’s porn obsession could lead to the unspeakable death of a beautiful, innocent teenage girl. She was wrong.

What she would be forced to face in the days to come was the utter ruin and immeasurable loss of a life given over to lust. 

• • •
Tom calls Kat occasionally, although their divorce was final in June, 2001. She once took their three-year-old to visit Tom in prison. As he shuffled in wearing leg irons, Kat hoped to provide her husband with some degree of closure with his daughter.

Although she plans to never see him again, her emotions are conflicted as she struggles to reconcile the two Toms she knew: “the strongest rock I’ve ever had in my life” and the monster he became. When the end comes for Tom, it will be a “huge grievous loss,” she says, not only for her but for their little girl.

“I’ve told her that Daddy is never coming back, but she still loves her daddy,” Kat said. “She has some beads like you get at a Mardi Gras parade and she puts them on her ankles and says, ‘Look, this is just like my daddy.’”  

*names changed

____________________
What wives of sex addicts need most
by Dr. Lynn Wildmon-White 
President, Esther Ministries

Although a sexual addict’s wife is often hurt and confused, she needs to understand several basic truths about herself and her husband’s addiction:

• His addiction impacts the entire family.
• His addiction is not her fault.
• She is not alone.
• She is not crazy.
• There is hope.
• Most sexual addicts want to stop, but are unable to without specialized, professional help. 

Esther Ministries
P. O. Box 2874
Tupelo, MS 38803
1-662-842-0508
Lynn@estherministries.org

____________________
What sex addicts need most
by Steve Gallager
President, Pure Life Ministries

Nothing demands more or offers less than sexual lust. The murderer of Leesa Marie Gray is an extreme example of the spiritual principle that the more we surrender to the lust for sin, the deeper into evil we must go to satisfy that lust. 

Man was created with a void in his heart that can be filled only by God. However, we often attempt to fill this void with the passing pleasures of sin. Only a deep and meaningful relationship with Him can bring true fulfillment, and that’s what sex addicts need most.

Pure Life Ministries
P. O. Box 410
Dry Ridge, Kentucky 41035
1-800-635-1866
unchained@purelifeministries.org
www.purelifeministries.org