Indiana Executes Weisheit, First of Three US Executions Set Thursday

Indiana put Jeffrey Weisheit to death by lethal injection early on Thursday (Nov 5), the first of three executions scheduled in the United States that day, the Associated Press reported. Weisheit, 50, was convicted over a 2010 fire he set at his girlfriend’s home in the Evansville area that killed her two children, aged eight and five.

Indiana execution carried out after midnight

The injection began just after midnight at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, and Weisheit was pronounced dead at 12:45am, according to Noelle Russell, chief communications officer for the Indiana Department of Correction. Russell said his final meal was barbecue ribs and that he had no final words.

The AP said Weisheit had admitted killing the children. Governor Mike Braun said in a statement after the execution that the sentence had been carried out as ordered by the court. “These reviews have never resulted in an overturned sentence,” Braun said, according to broadcaster WSBT. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita called the execution long-awaited justice for the two children.

Clemency and drug challenges rejected

Weisheit’s lawyers had asked Braun for clemency and for permission to carry out brain scans to support an argument about a head injury and his mental health, but the governor turned down both requests, the AP said. The State Parole Board had recommended that clemency be denied, and a last-minute appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court was also rejected, WSBT reported.

His final objection centred on the state’s plan to use lethal drugs bought from a pharmacy that the AP said faces a disciplinary hearing before the Indiana Pharmacy Board next week. The Department of Correction said it was confident in its ability to carry out the execution humanely.

Florida and Alabama executions scheduled

Florida was set to execute Jesse Guardado, 64, later on Thursday. He confessed to and quickly pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman in her Walton County home in 2004, then stealing her valuables, the AP said. It would be Florida’s 19th execution this year under Governor Ron DeSantis, matching the state’s 2025 record.

Alabama was also scheduled to execute Michael Taylor, 54, by lethal injection for beating an older couple to death with a metal bar during a robbery at their Gadsden home 35 years ago, when he was 19. Governor Kay Ivey declined to commute his sentence to life. It would be Alabama’s third execution of the year.

According to the AP, it is the second time this year that three US executions have been set for the same day, and 32 executions have been carried out in the country so far this year, more than half of them in Florida.

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