Judge orders rapist put away for life

St. Louis — A man who sang gospels while he sexually assaulted and beat a woman and then left her for dead in a trash bin in St. Louis was sentenced Friday to two life sentences plus 200 years in prison.

Gus Grady Jr., 52, who was once declared a criminal sexual psychopath, was convicted in September of beating the 33-year-old woman with a Club anti-theft device and sodomizing her before putting a plastic bag over her head and choking her.

The woman, a stranger he had grabbed as she walked along the 2600 block of Pestalozzi Street, survived.

"This is one of the most violent and perverse acts that has come before me in my tenure," said Judge Mark H. Neill. "Whatever demons are upon you, they are still persistent." Advertisement

Grady, who served 26 years for rape and kidnapping in Boone County, had been released from prison only a year before the 2004 attack here.

"It is my hope that you are not released from the Department of Corrections," the judge said. "I want to protect society."

Neill ordered that Grady serve the terms consecutively.

Prosecutor Mary Pat Benninger said Grady had a long history of sexual offenses, dating back to when he was a juvenile.

In January 1974, he was committed to the state mental hospital in Fulton, Mo., as a criminal sexual psychopath.

"The state believes he's a monster beyond help," Benninger told the judge.

Jurors convicted him of forcible sodomy, armed criminal action and two charges of first-degree assault. The victim said Grady was singing along with gospel songs playing on the radio of the minivan he was using. Grady left her in a trash container in the 2100 block of Russell Boulevard.

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