Indiana, Florida and Alabama carry out 3 U.S. executions on the same day

For the second time this year, three executions by lethal injection were carried out on the same day, this time in Indiana, Florida and Alabama. 

An Indiana man who admitted killing his girlfriend's two children was executed in the early morning hours Thursday. 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. local time, 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. Weisheit was Indiana's first execution of the year. 

Early Thursday evening, Florida carried out its record-tying 19th execution of the year. 

Jesse Guardado, 64, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. local time following a three-drug injection at a state prison in Starke. 

Guardado had 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 buy drugs. The woman had helped him get a job and housing.

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

In Alabama, 54-year-old Michael Taylor received the last lethal injection of the day for his conviction in the killing of an elderly man and woman in a 1991 home robbery.  

Taylor was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. local time. The execution got underway shortly before 6 p.m. as Taylor replied "no sir" when asked if he had any final words.

He appeared to mouth "thank you" toward his attorneys seated in the witness room. Taylor's spiritual adviser approached and prayed with him, and he closed his eyes, never opening them again.

This marked the second time this year that three people in the U.S. were put to death on the same day. Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma conducted executions on Aug. 13.   

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.

Pike said in a statement dictated to her lawyers and released a month after the botched execution that she's been in pain every moment since she woke up confused in a hospital. "I had not contemplated life beyond that night," she said.  

Lawyers had 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 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, meanwhile, has carried out more than half of the 34 executions so far this year in the U.S. Outgoing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made aggressive use of the death penalty like few other governors. 

Taylor was executed by 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 was 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. 

"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.  

Ivey declined, however. She called Taylor's actions "reprehensible" in a statement following his execution, adding the couple had opened their home to him and "Mr. Taylor repaid the Moores by beating them to death with a metal bar, all to rob them for money to buy clothing and jewelry."   

She also took a jab at California's Gov. Gavin Newsom for planning to commute all death sentences there.

"California may let their criminals escape justice, but not Alabama. Here, we enforce the law and always will," Ivey said at end of the statement.

The state executed 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.

The defense attorneys said Taylor "knew the depth of the harm he caused" and "grieved it for the rest of his life," adding he became a changed person in prison and that "Michael's life was proof that God isn't finished with any of us."