Braun Denies Weisheit Clemency Before Execution

Gov. Mike Braun denied clemency Monday, Nov. 2, to death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit, three days before his scheduled execution for the murders of two children, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported.

"I am accepting the Parole Board's unanimous recommendation to deny clemency for Jeffrey Weisheit," Braun said in a statement. "The Indiana Department of Correction will continue preparations to carry out the court-ordered sentence of execution on November 5, 2026."

The execution remains scheduled before sunrise Thursday at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

Braun's statement did not specifically address a separate request from Weisheit's attorneys for a temporary reprieve to review the state's execution drug purchases and lethal injection safeguards. A reprieve would postpone the execution without commuting the sentence. When 14 News asked about the request, the governor's office replied with the statement accepting the parole board's recommendation.

The attorneys say the state bought the drugs from Pharmaneek, a pharmacy the Indiana attorney general's office is now seeking to shut down. The Indiana Board of Pharmacy has set an emergency show-cause hearing on suspending the pharmacy's license for Monday, Nov. 9, four days after the scheduled execution, 14 News reported.

The Department of Correction confirmed Monday that it paid $275,000 for execution drugs and has them in its possession, according to the Capital Chronicle.

Joe Perkovich, one of Weisheit's attorneys, said Indiana's protocol is outdated because it relies on prison guards to insert IV lines.

"That is something that is only capably in the hands of well-trained, experienced medical professionals," Perkovich told 14 News. He pointed to Tennessee's attempted execution of Christa Pike on Sept. 30, which he said left her in a coma for a week.

In a statement after the governor's decision, the attorneys asked why the state paid "staggering sums" to a supplier the attorney general's office is trying to sanction. "We urge the governor to follow the path taken by Gov. Lee in Tennessee and call for a thorough review of Indiana's lethal injection protocol," the statement said.

Weisheit, 50, was sentenced to death in 2013 for murdering 8-year-old Alyssa Lynch and her 5-year-old brother, Caleb, in a 2010 house fire near Evansville. Their mother, Lisa Lynch, was working an overnight shift and had left the children in his care.

The five-member Indiana Parole Board voted unanimously Oct. 28 to recommend against clemency. His attorneys had sought life without parole, arguing that evidence of mental illness and brain injuries was not adequately presented in court. Prosecutors and investigators urged officials to uphold the sentence.

The children's parents split on the request. Their father, Steven Lynch, asked Braun to spare Weisheit.

"What good does it do the memory of my children to put this man to death?" he wrote in a sworn statement.

Lisa Lynch urged the board to uphold the death sentence.

"Every single day without them is a struggle," she told the board last month. "Every birthday, every holiday, every landmark moment is marked by their agonizing absence. Time passes, but the weight of losing them never fades."

At his Oct. 16 clemency interview, Weisheit apologized but repeatedly struggled to explain why anger toward the children's mother led him to kill them, the Capital Chronicle reported.