A man who tied up his girlfriend’s two young children and set fire to their home has been executed in the United States.
Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, was put to death by lethal injection in Indiana on Thursday, more than 16 years after murdering five-year-old Caleb Lynch and his eight-year-old sister Alyssa. He was one of three convicted murderers executed across America on the same day.
The children were killed in April 2010 when Weisheit deliberately set fire to their home in Evansville, Indiana. Both had been gagged and restrained, with Caleb found tied up on a mattress and Alyssa discovered inside a closet.
In one particularly disturbing detail, investigators found a flare stick stuffed into Caleb’s underwear. Weisheit had been looking after the children while their mother, Lisa Lynch, was working.
Prosecutors said that Weisheit had been angry with Lisa, with whom he was in a troubled relationship, because he believed that she was pregnant with another man’s child.
During a clemency hearing last month, Weisheit admitted starting the fire by placing a phone book on an electric stove burner. He said he’d packed his belongings and decided to set the house alight shortly before leaving, with both children still inside.
The killer had previously denied starting the fire during his 2013 trial, when he was convicted of two counts of murder and arson. He fled to Kentucky following the killings but was caught by police after a high-speed chase.
His execution took place at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, where he was pronounced dead at 12.45am, according to prison officials. Weisheit had chosen barbecue ribs for his final meal and made no final statement.
Witnesses were allowed to watch just three minutes of the execution before blinds covering the chamber window were closed. A reporter present said it was impossible to determine when the lethal injection was administered or whether Weisheit was conscious.
During a hearing to consider whether he should be spared the death penalty, Lisa described the devastating impact of losing her children. She said the pain of their deaths remained as powerful as ever.
‘Every day without them is a struggle,’ she said. ‘Every birthday, every holiday, every landmark moment is marked by their agonizing absence.
‘Time passes but the weight of losing them never fades. They will always be my children.’
But the children’s father, Steven Lynch, opposed Weisheit’s execution and supported reducing his sentence to life imprisonment without parole. In a sworn statement, he questioned what putting the killer to death would achieve.
‘What good does it do the memory of my children to put this man to death?’ he wrote, concluding his statement with the words: ‘Jeffrey, I forgive you.’
Weisheit himself apologized during his clemency hearing, telling officials: ‘There is no excuse or explanation for what I did.’ He also spoke about his religious faith and said he wanted to spend the rest of his life helping others in prison.
His lawyers had sought further brain scans, arguing that a history of head injuries and mental health problems warranted more examination. But Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, rejected his request for clemency and refused to commute his death sentence.
A separate legal challenge centerd on the drugs Indiana planned to use for the execution. They had been purchased from a pharmacy facing disciplinary proceedings, with the state confirming it had paid $275,000 (around £205,000) for the drugs.
Weisheit’s lawyers raised concerns about the supplier and the lack of disclosed testing records, but their efforts failed to stop the execution.
Two other convicted murderers, Jesse Guardado in Florida and Michael Taylor in Alabama, were also executed on Thursday.
It was the second occasion this year that three executions had been scheduled across the US on the same day.