Two people were executed by lethal injection in Indiana and Florida on Thursday, while a third execution was scheduled for later that evening in Alabama.
Jeffrey Weisheit, an Indiana man who admitted killing his girlfriend’s two children, was executed in the early morning hours. In 2010, Weisheit set fire to his girlfriend’s home near Evansville, killing the children, who were 8 and 5 years old.
Weisheit died at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. The lethal injection began shortly after midnight, and he was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. local time, according to Noelle Russell, chief communications officer for the Indiana Department of Correction.
Russell said Weisheit’s final meal was barbecue ribs and that he did not give any final statement. His execution was Indiana’s first of the year.
Early Thursday evening, Florida carried out its record-tying 19th execution of the year.
Jesse Guardado, 64, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. local time after receiving a three-drug lethal injection at a state prison in Starke.
Guardado had pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman inside her Walton County home in 2004. He then stole her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to buy drugs. The woman had previously helped him find a job and housing.
In 2024, a federal appeals court ruled that Guardado had received a “full and fair” hearing during the death penalty phase of his case.
Thursday marked the second time this year that three people in the United States were scheduled to be executed on the same day. Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma carried out executions on Aug. 13.
The death penalty has come under renewed scrutiny since the September failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee. Courts, however, have rejected efforts to stop other executions after Pike survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital.
In a statement dictated to her lawyers and released a month after the botched execution, Pike said she had experienced pain every moment since waking up confused in a hospital. “I had not contemplated life beyond that night,” she said.
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Lawyers had asked Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun to permit brain scans for Weisheit, 50, hoping to bolster their argument that he had a history of head injuries and mental health problems. Braun declined the request and also rejected a clemency petition seeking to convert Weisheit’s sentence to life in prison.
Weisheit’s most recent challenge focused on Indiana’s planned use of lethal drugs obtained from a pharmacy scheduled to face a disciplinary hearing before the Indiana Pharmacy Board next week. The Indiana Department of Correction said it was confident “in our ability to humanely carry out” the execution.
After the execution, Braun released a brief statement noting that state and federal courts had reviewed Weisheit’s case numerous times.
“These reviews have never resulted in an overturned sentence,” he said. “Today, Weisheit’s sentence has been carried out as ordered by the court.”
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said the execution delivered “long-awaited justice for Alyssa Lynch and her brother Caleb, two innocent children whose lives were stolen in an act of unspeakable cruelty.”
Florida, meanwhile, has carried out more than half of the 34 executions conducted in the United States so far this year. Outgoing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has used the death penalty more aggressively than few other governors.
Alabama’s scheduled execution
Michael Taylor, 54, faced execution in Alabama, 35 years after fatally beating an older couple with a metal bar during a robbery at their Gadsden home. Police arrested Taylor, then 19, in Birmingham, about an hour away, while he was in the victims’ Cadillac. The execution would be Alabama’s third of the year.
Death penalty opponents had urged Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to commute Taylor’s sentence to life in prison, citing his age and immaturity when the killings occurred. She declined.
“If the state kills Michael, it is not the 19-year-old who made the worst mistake of his life who it kills. But the mature, well-respected, God-fearing man sitting in that cell today,” said Esther Brown of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Alabama planned to execute Taylor by lethal injection after a judge declared the nitrogen gas method unconstitutional. His attorneys objected to the last-minute change because Taylor had selected nitrogen gas as his execution method several years ago, but a judge ruled against him.
