Indiana carried out the execution of Jeffrey Weisheit shortly after midnight Thursday, the first of three executions scheduled across the country on a single day, in a case that has reignited debate over the pace of capital punishment in the state and nationally.

Weisheit was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City following a lethal injection, according to ABC7 Chicago. He had been sentenced to death in 2013 for setting a 2010 house fire near Evansville that killed his girlfriend's two children, 8-year-old Alyssa Lynch and 5-year-old Caleb Lynch. Gov. Mike Braun denied Weisheit's bid for clemency on Monday, and the Indiana Supreme Court separately rejected a last-minute request to delay the execution for brain-scan testing. Weisheit's death marks Indiana's fourth execution since the state resumed capital punishment in December 2024 after a 15-year pause.

Two more states, two more executions scheduled

Alabama was scheduled to execute Michael Taylor at 6 p.m. local time Thursday, while Florida planned to execute Jesse Guardado, 64, at Florida State Prison at 6 p.m. Eastern for the 2004 murder of 75-year-old Jackie Malone in Walton County, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Neither outcome was confirmed as of publication Thursday morning.

Guardado's execution, if carried out, would be Florida's 20th of the year — a modern state record — after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an unusually high number of death warrants in 2026. Advocacy groups have highlighted Guardado's history as a survivor of the notorious Dozier School for Boys, a Florida reform school whose decades of documented abuse of children have drawn state apologies in recent years, arguing his trial jury never heard the full scope of that childhood trauma.

THE SECOND TIME THIS YEAR THREE PEOPLE ARE SCHEDULED TO DIE THE SAME DAY

The Death Penalty Information Center noted that Thursday marks only the second time in 2026 that three separate executions have landed on the same calendar day, following a similar cluster on Aug. 13. The group has pointed to the clustering as evidence of what it calls deepening inconsistency in how, and how often, states apply capital punishment.

Weisheit's case drew a contested clemency hearing earlier this week, where Indiana's five-member parole board heard competing testimony from the murdered children's parents and from witnesses addressing Weisheit's mental health and remorse before voting to deny his request for a sentence of life without parole. His attorneys had argued new evidence about his mental state warranted further review; prosecutors and the governor's office maintained the original sentence should stand.

If Alabama and Florida proceed as scheduled, Thursday would bring the country's total 2026 execution count further above recent-year averages, a trend capital punishment opponents say is likely to continue as several other states move toward resuming or expanding use of the death penalty.