Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita on Wednesday asked the Indiana Supreme Court to schedule the execution of death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit.
The filing came just eight days after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in Weisheit’s case.
He was sentenced to death in 2012 for the murders of 5-year-old Caleb Lynch and his 8-year-old sister, Alyssa Lynch, who were killed in a Vanderburgh County house fire in 2010.
In a verified motion filed with the state’s high court, attorneys for the state argued that Weisheit has exhausted all available avenues of review and that no active stay remains in place to prevent his execution.
The state requested that the court set an execution date 30 to 45 days after granting the motion.
“For more than 15 years, the family of these two innocent children has waited for justice,” Rokita said in a Wednesday statement. “A jury lawfully convicted Weisheit and sentenced him to death. That sentence has been upheld through every level of the judicial system. It is long past time to carry out the sentence.”
Weisheit killed the children during the early morning hours of April 10, 2010, according to court records. Prosecutors said he “hog-tied” Caleb and placed railroad flares in the boy’s underwear before igniting them and fleeing the home. Alyssa was also inside the residence when the fire spread through the house, killing both children.
Authorities later apprehended Weisheit in Kentucky after a high-speed chase. Court records indicate he threw a knife at pursuing officers before being taken into custody.
A Vanderburgh County jury convicted Weisheit in 2012 of two counts of murder and recommended a death sentence after finding multiple aggravating circumstances, including that both victims were younger than 12 years old. The trial court subsequently imposed the death penalty.
The case has spent more than a decade moving through state and federal courts.
The Indiana Supreme Court upheld Weisheit’s convictions and death sentence in 2015. His request for post-conviction relief was later denied, and the state’s high court affirmed that decision in 2018.
Weisheit then turned to federal court, filing a habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in 2020. The petition was denied in 2022, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the decision last August before rejecting a rehearing request the following month.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case on June 8.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana AG seeks execution date for death row inmate convicted in 2010 killings of two children
Reporting by Casey Smith, Indiana Capital Chronicle / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Casey Smith, Indiana Capital Chronicle | USA TODAY Network
