Jeffrey Weisheit killed the children, ages 8 and 5, by setting fire to his girlfriend's house in the Evansville area in 2010.
The remains of 8-year-old Alyssa Lynch and 5-year-old Caleb Lynch were recovered from the ruins of a fire at their home in the Evansville area.
Alyssa’s body was in a closet. Caleb’s body was on a mattress, restrained with duct tape. A railroad flare was in his underwear, and another was under his body.
The children’s mother, Lisa Lynch, was at work at the time. She was in a relationship with Weisheit, but it was breaking down, investigators said.
Weisheit spent 13 years on death row after his conviction.
Weisheit spent 13 years on death row after his conviction.
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.
Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma conducted executions on Aug. 13.
It would be Florida's 19th execution this year under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, matching a record set by the state in 2025, but was the first this year in Indiana.
RELATED | Indiana's governor turns down clemency request, says execution planned for Thursday will go forward
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 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."
Weisheit’s last hours were marked by an attempt by his attorneys to convince the Indiana Supreme Court to do what the legal team could not convince Gov. Mike Braun to do—call for a ten-day halt in the execution. His counsel raised doubts about the drugs used for the execution as well as IDOC staff assigned to carry out the execution order.
The high court upheld the execution in a 3-2 split decision.
Weisheit’s attorney said he was never able to witness the process of preparing his client for execution and was unable to determine if Weisheit was aware of his surroundings and situation.
“Mr. Weisheit was unresponsive, I can say I observed that,” said attorney Joseph Perkovich. “I don’t know that he was unconscious. And after three minutes, the prison administrator brought the curtain down.”
The attorney said a hearing scheduled for next week to revoke the license of the pharmacy that sold the lethal drugs to IDOC has been postponed until December.
Steven Lynch, the children’s father, asked the court to give Weisheit a life sentence without the possibility of parole. In a sworn affidavit, he wrote:
With the remaining years of his life, he would be able to continue seeking the Lord’s forgiveness and redemption for his actions.
Hurting Mr. Weisheit’s family by executing him is not the outcome my children would want.
I seek to save his family the great pain and loss from the taking of his life. I want to prevent another parent from experiencing the loss I have experienced.
I would like more time for Jeffrey to live. He knows in his heart what he did. What I want is to extend an act of mercy.
Jeffrey, I forgive you.
Weisheit’s counsel released a lengthy statement following the execution:
The State of Indiana extinguished the life of Jeffrey Weisheit today, before the rising of the sun in Michigan City. Its 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—from records the Department of Correction produced and administrative proceedings of the Indiana Board of Pharmacy showing that on September 25, 2026, the day after the 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.
Instead of being shut down on October 5, as the pharmacy board originally envisioned, Pharmaneek preserved that sale of illicitly procured medicine off the gray market and outside legal channels and succeeded first in postponing its hearing to November 9, 2026—four days after the execution date for which it had just sold the execution drugs—and yet again pushed it off to December 14, 2026. Pharmaneek thus will continue its operations for at least another 10 weeks from the date that the Board of Pharmacy had originally set its hearing to suspend its license unless it showed why it should escape that fate after violating the terms of its probation.
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.
This is a dark day for all involved with this within the executive branch, which moved in lockstep in stonewalling not only Mr. Weisheit’s advocates, but also the media by refusing to address any single element of the array of cold hard facts about this staggering chain of events. And it is an unspeakably sad day for Jeff Weisheit’s loving family. 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.
His legal team and Catholic spiritual advisor throughout his years at the state prison express our deep sorrow from losing him. We also express on behalf of those working and living within the Indiana State Prison who are disallowed from speaking their peace about their affection for him, that Jeff will be sorely missed.
In the end, the perspective of Caleb and Alyssa Lynch’s father bears repeating: “I ask that those seeing these words read aloud ask themselves, 'What good does it do the memory of my children to put this man to death?'"
Attorney General Todd Rokita issued a statement:
Early this morning, the State of Indiana carried out the lawful sentence of Jeffrey Weisheit, delivering long-awaited justice for Alyssa Lynch and her brother Caleb, two innocent children whose lives were stolen in an act of unspeakable cruelty.
In April 2010, Weisheit bound young Caleb and deliberately set fire to the family’s Evansville home with both children trapped inside. He then fled to Kentucky, where he was arrested. A jury convicted him in 2013 of two counts of murder and arson and imposed the death penalty. That verdict and sentence withstood exhaustive review at every level of the state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
I am grateful to the dedicated attorneys in my office’s appeals team, who invested thousands of hours ensuring the jury’s verdict was upheld and the law was faithfully enforced. I also thank the Indiana Department of Correction for carrying out this solemn duty with utmost professionalism.
This case stands as a clear affirmation that those who commit the most heinous crimes against the most vulnerable will be held fully accountable under Indiana law.
My thoughts and prayers remain with the families of Alyssa and Caleb. 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.
Gov. Braun also commented on the early morning execution:
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 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.
The execution on tap in Florida
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 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's scheduled execution
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.
Source: bsnews.com, Staff; FOX News, Russ McQuaid, Matt Adams, November 5, 2026
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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