Indiana executed a man early Thursday who admitted setting the house fire that killed two children, becoming the first of three people scheduled to be put to death across the United States that day.
Jeffrey Weisheit was convicted of igniting the blaze at a home near Evansville in 2010. The victims were his girlfriend’s children, an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old, and prosecutors said the killings appeared to stem from the couple’s collapsing relationship.
Weisheit was put to death at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Noelle Russell, chief communications officer for the Indiana Department of Correction, said.
He was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. and did not make a final statement, according to Russell.
His last meal was barbecue ribs. Indiana does not permit media witnesses to attend executions, Russell said.
Executions were also scheduled in Florida and Alabama, potentially making Thursday only the second day this year on which three people were executed nationwide.
The closely timed executions came amid renewed scrutiny of the death penalty after Tennessee’s unsuccessful attempt to execute Christa Pike. Courts have nevertheless declined to stop other scheduled executions since Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital last month.
Florida’s execution would be the 19th carried out in the state this year under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, matching Florida’s record from 2025. Indiana, by contrast, was conducting its first execution of the year.
Lawyers sought a life sentence for Indiana inmate
Attorneys for the 50-year-old Weisheit asked Republican Gov. Mike Braun to authorize brain scans that they said could support claims that Weisheit had suffered head injuries and dealt with mental health issues.
Braun rejected that request and declined to commute the death sentence to life in prison.
Weisheit’s most recent challenge focused on the lethal-injection drugs Indiana planned to use. His lawyers questioned the drugs because they were obtained from a pharmacy scheduled to face a disciplinary hearing before the Indiana Pharmacy Board the following week.
The Indiana Department of Correction said it was confident the execution could be carried out humanely.
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Florida nears its execution record from 2025
Jesse Guardado admitted killing a 75-year-old woman inside her Walton County home in 2004. He pleaded guilty soon afterward, acknowledging that he fatally stabbed her and stole a jewelry box, $80 and other belongings to fund his drug use.
The woman had previously helped Guardado find employment and housing.
In 2024, a federal appeals court ruled that Guardado, now 64, had received a “full and fair” hearing during the sentencing phase of his capital case.
Florida has accounted for more than half of the 32 executions carried out in the United States so far this year.
DeSantis, who is set to leave office in January, has said he wants to deliver justice to families who have waited for decades while death sentences remained unresolved.
Alabama inmate was 19 when he committed killings
Michael Taylor, 54, was scheduled to be executed in Alabama, 35 years after he fatally beat an older couple with a metal bar during a robbery at their home in Gadsden.
Police arrested Taylor, who was 19 at the time, about an hour away in Birmingham while he was driving the victims’ Cadillac.
If carried out, the execution would be Alabama’s third of the year.
Opponents of capital punishment urged Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to commute Taylor’s sentence to life in prison, pointing to his age and lack of maturity when the crimes occurred. Ivey declined to intervene.
“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 ruled that the nitrogen gas method was unconstitutional.
Taylor’s attorneys objected to the late change because he had chosen nitrogen gas as his preferred execution method several years ago. A judge rejected that challenge.
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