An Indiana man who acknowledged killing two children in a house fire was executed early Thursday, becoming the first of three prisoners scheduled to receive lethal injections in the United States that day.
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — Florida and Alabama planned to execute two men Thursday for killing elderly victims during home robberies, hours after Indiana put a prisoner to death in the first of three executions scheduled across the country.
The execution would be Florida’s 19th this year under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, tying the state record set in 2025. It would also mark the second time this year that three people were scheduled to be executed on the same day.
The death penalty has come under renewed scrutiny since Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital during a failed execution in Tennessee in September. Courts, however, have rejected attempts to stop other executions.
Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Department of Correction spokesperson Noelle Russell said.
Russell said Weisheit’s final meal was barbecue ribs and that he did not offer any last words. Weisheit had admitted killing his girlfriend’s two children in a 2010 house fire near Evansville, but he had asked Gov. Mike Braun to grant clemency and commute his sentence to life in prison. Braun refused.
Florida has carried out most U.S. executions this year
Florida has conducted more than half of the 32 executions carried out in the U.S. this year. DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has said he wants to deliver justice to families who have waited decades for death sentences to be enforced.
Jesse Guardado pleaded guilty soon after confessing to the fatal stabbing of a 75-year-old woman in her Walton County home in 2004. He stole her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to buy drugs. The woman had helped him find a job and housing.
A federal appeals court ruled in 2024 that Guardado, now 64, had received a “full and fair” hearing during the penalty phase of his case.
Death penalty opponents point to Alabama inmate’s age
Michael Taylor was 19 in 1991 when he fatally beat two people, ages 83 and 79, with a metal bar during a robbery at their home in Gadsden, Alabama. Police arrested him in Birmingham, about an hour away, driving the victims’ Cadillac.
Opponents of capital punishment 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.
Taylor, 54, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection after a judge ruled that Alabama’s planned nitrogen gas method was unconstitutional. His attorneys challenged the last-minute change because Taylor had chosen nitrogen gas as his execution method several years ago, but a judge rejected the argument.
Weisheit’s attorneys sought a life sentence
Weisheit’s attorneys failed to persuade Braun, a Republican, to allow brain scans that they said could support their argument that a history of head injuries and mental health problems should make him ineligible for execution.
Weisheit’s final legal challenge focused on Indiana’s planned use of lethal drugs obtained from a pharmacy scheduled to face a disciplinary hearing the following week before the Indiana Pharmacy Board.
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,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said.
Fischer reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Chandler from Montgomery, Alabama. Associated Press reporter Ed White contributed from Detroit.