Indiana carries out the first of 3 US executions taking place on a single day

An Indiana man who admitted killing his girlfriend’s two children was executed early Thursday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled for the same day in the U.S.

Jeffrey Weisheit killed the children, ages 8 and 5, by setting fire to his girlfriend’s house in the Evansville area in 2010.

Weisheit died at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. The lethal injection started just after midnight and he was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m., according to Noelle Russell, Indiana Department of Correction chief communications officer.

She said Weisheit’s final meal was barbecue ribs and he had no final words.

Florida and Alabama were also set to carry out executions Thursday, which would mark the second time this year that three people in the U.S. would be put to death on the same day.

It will be Florida’s 19th execution this year under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — matching a record set by the state in 2025 — but the first this year in Indiana.

The death penalty has faced renewed scrutiny following the September failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, although courts have rejected efforts to halt other executions since she survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Lawyers had asked for a life sentence for Weisheit

Lawyers wanted Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun to allow Weisheit, 50, to undergo brain scans in an effort to reinforce their argument that he has a history of head injuries and mental health problems. Braun declined, and he also turned down a request to reduce the sentence to life in prison.

Weisheit’s latest objection centered on the state’s planned use of lethal drugs purchased from a pharmacy that is facing a disciplinary hearing next week at the Indiana Pharmacy Board. The Indiana Department of Correction said that it’s confident “in our ability to humanely carry out” the execution.

Following the execution, Braun issued a brief statement noting Weisheit’s case was reviewed many times by state and federal courts.

“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 that the execution provided “long-awaited justice for Alyssa Lynch and her brother Caleb, two innocent children whose lives were stolen in an act of unspeakable cruelty.”

Florida on the verge of tying last year’s execution record

In Florida, Jesse Guardado confessed and quickly pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman inside her Walton County home in 2004 before stealing her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to support his drug habit. She had helped him get a job and housing.

A federal appeals court in 2024 said that Guardado, now 64, had received a “full and fair” hearing during the death penalty phase of his case.

Florida has carried out more than half the 32 total executions in the U.S. so far this year. DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has said that his goal is to bring justice to families who have waited decades for the death sentences to be carried out.

Alabama man convicted of killings when he was 19

Michael Taylor, 54, faces execution in Alabama, 35 years after fatally beating an older couple with a metal bar during a robbery in their Gadsden home. Police arrested the 19-year-old Taylor with the victims’ Cadillac, an hour away in Birmingham. The execution would be the state’s third this year.

Death penalty opponents had urged Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to reduce Taylor’s sentence to life in prison, noting his age and immaturity at the time of the killings. 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.

The state plans to execute Taylor by lethal injection after a judge declared a nitrogen gas method unconstitutional. His attorneys objected to the last-minute switch to lethal injection since he selected nitrogen gas as his method several years ago, but a judge ruled against Taylor.

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Fischer reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Chandler from Montgomery, Alabama. Associated Press reporter Ed White contributed from Detroit.