Indiana Carries Out First of 3 U.S. Executions Set for Thursday

Execution in Indiana

Weisheit was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, after a lethal injection began shortly after midnight. Noelle Russell, the Indiana Department of Correction’s chief communications officer, provided the timing.

Weisheit had admitted killing his girlfriend’s two children. Lawyers sought brain scans, saying a history of head injuries and mental health problems supported their argument, but Gov. Mike Braun rejected that request and a plea to replace the death sentence with life in prison.

After the execution, Braun said state and federal courts had reviewed the case many times. Attorney General Todd Rokita said it brought “long-awaited justice” for Alyssa Lynch and Caleb, the children Weisheit killed.

Florida’s planned execution

Florida was scheduled to execute Jesse Guardado on Thursday. If carried out, it would be the state’s 19th execution this year, matching its 2025 record, and its total would account for more than half of the 32 executions in the country so far this year.

Guardado confessed to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman in her Walton County home in 2004 and pleaded guilty. He took her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to support his drug habit; she had helped him find work and housing.

Alabama case and method

Michael Taylor, 54, was also scheduled to be executed in Alabama on Thursday, 35 years after a robbery in which he fatally beat an older couple with a metal bar. Police arrested him, then 19, in Birmingham with the victims’ Cadillac, about an hour from their Gadsden home.

Alabama planned to use lethal injection after a judge ruled the nitrogen gas method unconstitutional. Taylor’s lawyers challenged the late change because he had chosen nitrogen gas several years earlier, but a judge rejected his argument.