By Casey Smith
Indiana Capital Chronicle
MICHIGAN CITY — Jeffrey Weisheit didn’t visibly move or open his eyes during the three minutes that witnesses were allowed to view his execution early Thursday. And the blinds covering the window into the chamber closed eight minutes before the time Indiana officials said he was pronounced dead.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle, the only media outlet to witness the execution, could not determine whether Weisheit was conscious, see where an IV had been inserted or understand what was being said inside the chamber.
In two other recent Indiana executions, the condemned men blinked and moved.
The Department of Correction said the execution process began shortly after midnight. The blinds did not open until 12:34 a.m. Central Standard Time. What happened during that intervening period — including when the lethal injection began — was not visible to the witnesses.
Witnesses saw Weisheit lying on a gurney as his spiritual adviser spoke over him. At 12:37 a.m., the blinds closed. DOC later reported his time of death as 12:45 a.m.
“They sure did not allow us to see very much,” Weisheit’s father, Bert, said while the witnesses waited to leave.
“It’s a very simple, fast process actually,” a DOC employee accompanying them replied.
Weisheit was executed for murdering 8-year-old Alyssa Lynch and her 5-year-old brother, Caleb, in a 2010 house fire near Evansville. Their mother, Lisa Lynch, was working an overnight shift and had left the children in his care. She urged officials to uphold his death sentence during last month’s clemency proceedings.
DOC said Weisheit had no final words. His final meal was barbecue ribs from Texas Corral and Mountain Dew.
His death followed Gov. Mike Braun’s denial of clemency on Monday and a divided Indiana Supreme Court decision on Wednesday rejecting a final request for a stay. Weisheit’s attorneys had sought more time to examine the drugs and the procedures Indiana planned to use.
Afterward, defense attorney Joe Perkovich said the limited view left him unable to explain what he had witnessed.
“I don’t know what I saw,” he said during comments in the prison parking lot.
A long wait for witnesses — then three minutes
The Capital Chronicle gained access through Weisheit’s personal witness list. Indiana does not provide independent witness seats for the press. Journalists may attend if the condemned person selects them for one of five invited witness positions.
The other witnesses were Weisheit’s parents, his sister and Perkovich.
A van carrying the witnesses entered the prison gates at 10:48 p.m. Wednesday, passing armed guards. The van driver and numerous other guards wore masks to shield their faces.
Witnesses exited the van outside the administration building at 10:51 p.m. and went through security, including body scanners, metal detectors and screening of their belongings,
The Capital Chronicle reporter was permitted to bring identification, car keys, a notepad and a pen.
At 11:06 p.m., the five witnesses entered a room typically used for prison visits. They sat silently in plastic chairs against a wall, accompanied by two DOC employees. Sporadic clanking and the sound of doors shutting broke the quiet.
They remained there until 12:22 a.m.
As the group walked back toward the van, family members commented on the wait.
“A little slow, but things got to be done right,” one of the DOC employees said.
The witnesses were back in the van at 12:26 a.m. They passed through additional security checkpoints and reached the execution chamber building at 12:30 a.m.
At 12:33 a.m., they entered the witness room.
The lights were dimmed. Two guards stood at the back. Five chairs were provided, but only four were positioned in front of the small, tinted window into the execution chamber. Perkovich chose to stand because the fifth chair did not offer a view.
The blinds were closed.
When they opened a minute later, Weisheit was already on the gurney. From the Capital Chronicle’s vantage point, his whole body was visible. His left arm was extended, his hand was restrained and a white sheet covered the lower half of his body. He appeared to be wearing a red jumpsuit.
Deacon Brian Nosbusch, his spiritual adviser, stood over him, speaking and appearing to pray. Only faint, indistinct sounds reached the witness room. No words could be made out.
The Capital Chronicle did not see Weisheit move or open his eyes during the three-minute viewing period. It was unclear whether he was conscious or where an IV line had been inserted.
At 12:36 a.m., Nosbusch was still speaking. At 12:37 a.m., he made the sign of the cross, and Deputy Warden Dawn Buss closed the blinds.
Witnesses could still hear faint voices and see shifting shadows beyond the blinds, but could not make out what was happening.
The witness room lights came fully on at 12:46 a.m. The door was unlocked and opened at 12:52 a.m., and the group returned to the van at 12:55 a.m.
“I don’t know how anyone can see anything,” Weisheit’s father said.
“That’s the point,” Perkovich replied. “They don’t want anyone to see what they do. I’m stunned.”
The van left prison property at 1:01 a.m. and returned the witnesses to their drop-off site at 1:09 a.m.
The Capital Chronicle encountered similar viewing restrictions at Joseph Corcoran’s December 2024 execution, which the same reporter witnessed. In that execution, the blinds were open for about six minutes.
What witnesses couldn’t see
In the prison parking lot afterward, Perkovich said Weisheit’s lack of movement left him unable to assess his client’s condition.
“I don’t know that he was unconscious,” he said.
He emphasized that the witnesses had no view of the preparations before the blinds opened and could not make out details of the intravenous equipment.
“There was no pronouncement of death,” he said of the period visible to witnesses.
The Capital Chronicle likewise could not identify when the drugs were administered or when Weisheit died. DOC’s statement placed his death eight minutes after the blinds closed.
Before the execution, DOC and the attorney general’s office had defended the state’s preparations and declined to discuss supplier information, citing Indiana’s confidentiality law.
Final appeals rejected
Other states have continued carrying out executions since Tennessee’s failed Sept. 30 attempt to execute Christa Pike, including Texas on Oct. 7 and Florida on Oct. 13 and Oct. 20. Weisheit’s execution was the first of three scheduled nationwide Thursday, with Alabama set to execute Michael Taylor and Florida scheduled to execute Jesse Guardado later in the day.
Braun rejected Weisheit’s request to commute his sentence to life without parole after the Indiana Parole Board unanimously recommended against clemency.
The children’s parents had taken different positions. Lisa Lynch urged officials to uphold the death sentence. Their father, Steven Lynch, asked Braun to spare Weisheit, saying another death would not restore his children and would inflict loss on another family.
Weisheit’s attorneys separately sought a temporary reprieve and an independent review of Indiana’s lethal injection practices and drug procurement. Braun’s office did not publicly announce a decision on that request or comment on it before the execution.
In a statement afterward, Braun said the sentence had survived repeated judicial review.
“Jeffrey Weisheit’s case has been heard and reviewed numerous times by both state and federal courts, including the Indiana Supreme Court, since his conviction in 2013. These reviews have never resulted in an overturned sentence,” the governor said.
The Indiana Supreme Court voted 3-2 Wednesday to deny an emergency stay while Weisheit challenged the drugs and execution procedures in Marion Superior Court.
His attorneys alleged improper drug procurement, inadequate storage safeguards and insufficient qualifications for staff placing IV lines. A supplemental filing alleged that the pharmacy supplying the drugs contributed $5,000 to Attorney General Todd Rokita’s campaign in June while on probation.
The court questioned the timing of the challenge, submitted hours before the execution. The defense said it could not have filed sooner because key information about the supplier and the state’s receipt of the drugs had only recently emerged.
Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Christopher Goff dissented. They would have granted a 10-day stay for immediate submissions on the drugs’ formulation, expiration, storage and testing, as well as the defense’s disclosure and filing timeline and whether Weisheit had exhausted available remedies.
Rokita defended the execution afterward and expressed sympathy for the children’s family.
“Nothing can ever bring their children back, and the pain of this loss will never fully leave them. Yet, hopefully, with this justice being done, they may find some measure of peace,” he said in a statement.
Pharmacy questions remain
At a Statehouse news conference Wednesday afternoon, Perkovich had urged Braun to intervene.
“This will not be resolved by simply taking his life,” he said.
The legal team also sent the Indiana Board of Pharmacy a letter asking to address disciplinary proceedings involving Pharmaneek Inc., the Indianapolis pharmacy identified as Indiana’s execution drug supplier.
Pharmaneek is on probation and faces possible emergency suspension over alleged violations of restrictions on compounding, the preparation of customized medications. The board has not ordered suspension in that proceeding.
The hearing was initially scheduled for Oct. 5 and moved to Nov. 9 after the pharmacy’s newly retained attorney requested additional preparation time.
In their statement after the execution, Weisheit’s lawyers said the hearing had been postponed again, to Dec. 14. But the board’s Nov. 9 agenda posted online still listed Pharmaneek’s case under “Order to Show Cause” as of Thursday morning.
The board did not respond Wednesday to the Capital Chronicle’s questions about the pharmacy’s role, the postponement or whether the lawyers would be permitted to speak.
Perkovich said that the defense still had not received testing results or temperature records for the newly acquired drugs. Similar Capital Chronicle public records requests had not yielded those documents as of early Thursday morning.
DOC confirmed Monday that it paid $275,000 for the drugs. An inventory log released that day recorded receipt of six 50-milliliter vials of pentobarbital on Oct. 29.
The lawyers contend the pharmacy’s inspection history and the lack of disclosed quality records warrant further investigation.
Outside the prison, the Diocese of Gary organized a Wednesday night prayer vigil. The Indiana Abolition Coalition, Death Penalty Action and other opponents remained in the parking lot through the execution.
Afterward, the defense counsel’s written statement mourned Weisheit while acknowledging the children he killed.
“They have lost a son and a brother, and grieve yet again over the tragedy of his unspeakable and incomprehensible acts against the two innocent children in this case,” the statement said of his family.
The lawyers closed by repeating a question from Steven Lynch’s sworn statement supporting clemency: “What good does it do the memory of my children to put this man to death?”
