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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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An Indiana man who killed his girlfriend’s two children was executed on Thursday using lethal drugs that his lawyers said were obtained from a pharmacy that is facing having its license revoked.
Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, died at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City early Thursday. The lethal injection started just after midnight and he was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m., the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) said in a statement.
Weisheit was sentenced to death for killing 8-year-old Alyssa Lynch and her 5-year-old brother, Caleb Lynch, by setting fire to his girlfriend’s house near Evansville in 2010.
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The execution took place after Weisheit’s attorneys and death penalty opponents raised concerns about the state’s lethal injection drugs, saying the pentobarbital that was to be used was purchased from a pharmacy that is being investigated by the state’s attorney general for alleged misconduct and safety violations.
In a statement to Newsweek, Weisheit's attorneys said the state's "executive branch—the governor, the attorney general, and the corrections department—chose in unison to debase themselves to carry out his execution in the face of facts—not allegations, but incontrovertible facts" that the drugs used in the execution were supplied by Pharmaneek Inc.
They said that records show that a day after the Indiana Pharmacy Board "ordered Pharmaneek, Inc. to show why it should not be immediately shut down, the Department of Correction paid Pharmaneek $275,000 to supply it execution drugs that, when sold as medicine to a hospital, cost $9,000."
Indiana officials did not publicly confirm that the drugs used in Weisheit’s execution were purchased from Pharmaneek, but previously confirmed that it paid $275,000 for six vials of pentobarbital in late October.
It comes after Tennessee’s botched execution of Christa Pike in September brought fresh scrutiny on how states carry out the death penalty in the U.S., particularly when using lethal injection, including how states obtain lethal drugs after pharmaceutical companies moved aggressively to keep their products from being used in executions. Courts have rejected efforts to stop other executions using lethal drugs in the weeks since Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital.
Newsweek has contacted the Indiana Department of Correction, the Indiana governor’s office and the Indiana state attorney general’s office for comment via email.
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Questions Over Lethal Drugs
Weisheit’s attorneys had asked Indiana Governor Mike Braun to halt the execution and order an independent review of Indiana’s lethal injection procedures and its procurement of execution drugs.
“Laid bare, the apparent conduct here is patently unworthy of the public’s confidence in the solemn exercise of state power in taking a human being’s life in the name of the people,” Joe Perkovich, an attorney representing Weisheit, said on Wednesday.
In an application for the reprieve, Weisheit’s attorneys said Indiana purchased pentobarbital for use in executions from Pharmaneek Inc.
State law prohibits the release of identifying information about the state's procurement of lethal injection drugs. But Weisheit's attorneys said they identified the supplier from an IDOC invoice that was not properly redacted.
Pharmaneek is facing suspension of its license over alleged violations of restrictions surrounding compounding, the practice of preparing customized medications. The pharmacy is scheduled to appear for a disciplinary hearing before the Indiana Pharmacy Board on Monday, according to an online agenda.
But Weisheit's attorneys said the hearing has been postponed to December 14.
"This has meant and will mean that, unless emergency steps are taken, this pharmacy will continue supplying medicine to the public, jeopardizing Indianans up and down the state, because the governor, the attorney general, and the corrections department could not step back from the public display of their power to take a life in the people’s name at essentially any cost," the attorneys said.
Newsweek has contacted Pharmaneek and the Indiana Pharmacy Board for comment via email.
Pharmaneek allegedly violated its probation after failed inspections by the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the application said. Those inspections found "shoddy procedures, including using unlabeled bottles, bottles of expired drugs being found on pharmacy shelves and failure to keep consistent temperature logs for storage areas."
Death penalty opponents had raised concerns that the use of the lethal drugs could lead to another botched execution.
"First we had the failure of the drugs to kill Christa Pike in Tennessee in September, and now Indiana is risking a failed execution by using a drug provider that the state itself is investigating and may actually shut down," Abraham Bonowitz, the executive director of Death Penalty Action, said in a statement provided to Newsweek.
Ahead of the execution, a spokesperson for IDOC said the agency was confident in its ability to “humanely carry out” the death sentence.
The department confirmed to the Indiana Capital Chronicle that it paid $275,000 for the pentobarbital, with an inventory log provided to the newspaper recording the receipt of six 50 milliliter vials of the drug on October 29. The log did not identify the drug supplier and the Chronicle reported that officials declined to discuss the supplier or other details, citing state laws that shield information about the death penalty. Newsweek has contacted IDOC for comment.
The execution went ahead after Braun declined to step in and after the Indiana Supreme Court late on Wednesday night rejected a request for an emergency stay, in a 3-2 vote.
“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,” Braun said in a statement after the execution.
“These reviews have never resulted in an overturned sentence. The State Parole Board issued a unanimous recommendation to deny Weisheit's final appeal for clemency and that his execution proceed as scheduled. 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.”
What Media Witness Saw
The Indiana Capital Chronicle said it was the only media outlet among the witnesses to Weisheit’s execution.
Witnesses arrived at the execution chamber building at about 12:30 a.m. and entered the witness room three minutes later, Casey Smith reported for the newspaper.
The blinds separating them from the chamber remained closed until 12:34 a.m., even though IDOC said the execution process began shortly after midnight.
When the blinds opened, Weisheit was already strapped to a gurney. His left arm was extended and his hand restrained, as his spiritual adviser stood over him and appeared to be praying.
Smith wrote that Weisheit did not appear to move or open his eyes in the three minutes that witnesses were able to view the execution, and it was not clear if he was conscious or where his IV line was inserted.
The blinds closed at 12:37 a.m., and IDOC reported Weisheit’s time of death was 12:45 a.m.
In its statement, IDOC said Weisheit had no final words and that his final meal was barbecue ribs from Texas Corral and Mountain Dew.
Perkovich, who also witnessed the execution, later said the limited view meant he wasn’t sure what had happened.
“I don’t know what I saw,” Perkovich said in the prison parking lot, according to the newspaper.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Emma Lee-Sang
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