MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. − Roy Lee Ward, the man who raped and murdered 15-year-old Stacy Payne inside her Spencer County home in 2001, was executed just after midnight Friday.
Ward died at 12:33 a.m., a little more than half an hour after the lethal injection process began inside Indiana State Prison, the Department of Correction announced.
His last words were “Brian is going to read them.” He was 53 years old.
Ward was found guilty in 2002 of murdering Payne, a beloved Heritage Hills High School cheerleader and honor roll student, inside her home at Dale. That conviction was overturned in 2004 after the Indiana Supreme Court granted Ward a new trial, saying the original proceedings should have been moved out of Spencer County due to community outrage.
A second trial got underway in 2007. The result was the same.
According to police, Ward showed up at Payne’s door on July 11, 2001 while she was home with her younger sister. He claimed he was looking for a missing dog. He then forced himself inside, cut the phone lines, and attacked Payne with a knife and dumbbell.
Her sister had been napping when Ward arrived. Hiding upstairs, she called 911, and then-Dale town marshal Matt Keller arrived so quickly that Ward was still holding the knife when he ran inside.
Payne was airlifted to University of Louisville Hospital, but succumbed to her injuries.
In addition to cheerleading and playing in the marching band, Payne also taught crafts at her Bible school, and worked a summer job at Jenk’s Pizza. The July of her death, she was a month away from starting her sophomore year.
“She was the most caring, confident, happy, loving child anyone could have asked for,” Stacy’s mother, Julie Wininger, said during Ward’s first trial in 2002. “She was determined to always do her personal best. She had so much potential and was eager to excel.”
A small crowd protested outside the prison
Media wasn’t allowed to witness the execution. Per Indiana law, only select members of the victim’s family and an even smaller group for the convicted are permitted in witness areas.
Ward became the third Indiana convicted murderer to be put to death in Michigan City in the last 10 months. Like the executions of fellow convicted murderers Joseph Corcoran on Dec. 18 and Benjamin Ritchie on May 20, the lead up to Ward’s death drew a crowd.
Around 8 p.m., about 35 people joined a prayer vigil set up by the Diocese of Gary in a parking lot across from the prison gate.
Standing around a small collection of candles balanced on a red milk crate, the group recited prayers and expressed their belief that Indiana should abolish the death penalty.
The Rev. Rick Holy, of Lowell, Indiana, spearheads the diocese’s efforts against capital punishment. He said even though Roy Lee Ward was “guilty of some of the most horrendous crimes a person could commit,” his life still has value.
“This doesn’t accomplish what people might hope it accomplishes. It’s not really justice. It’s justice in the old sense of an eye for an eye. But it’s not something that’s going to bring a person who was raped and murdered back,” he said. “Will it bring some comfort to (Stacy Payne’s) family? I don’t know. That would be for them to say. We pray for them today. We pray for all victims of terrible violence.”
Payne’s mother, Julie Wininger, asked the Indiana Parole Board to deny Ward clemency late last month. They did.
“There is a quote that says time heals all wounds,” she said at the time. “But that absolutely is not true in this case, where a child is brutally murdered and dies a horrific death because of evil. You carry the pain every single day.”
Gary Bishop Robert McClory joined the vigil Thursday as well. He’s said he’s seen signs that the church’s anti-death-penalty advocacy is “opening hearts and minds” across the state, as well as in the legislature.
“To uphold the value of every human life is very important in this world that sees death as a solution. Pope Francis put it as ‘we live in a throwaway culture,’” he said. “We just throw away people – the elderly, the unborn, those who are at a stage of life that we just don’t think is worthy of continuing. We throw them away.”
When asked what message he would convey to Payne’s family, he said he’s praying for them and hopes they’re imbued with “the full grace of the lord’s love.”
“I can’t place myself in their shoes. They lost a daughter under the most horrific of circumstances,” he said. “That would be a pastoral conversation, so I wouldn’t be comfortable addressing them specifically in this context. But I hope they’re getting spiritual support and prayer.”
Abe Bonowitz was present as well.
The executive director and co-founder of Death Penalty Action – an organization that “works to stop executions and abolish the death penalty through advocacy, education and action,” its website reads – travels the U.S. to attend any execution he can. A large bell often comes with him, and he unloaded it from his branded trailer outside the prison Thursday night. He asked members of the prayer vigil to ring it.
It’s meant as a solemn protest for the people killed via capital punishment. Several people from the Gary diocese followed suit, the clangs echoing in the subdued darkness.
Bonowitz said Ward’s execution is the first of five scheduled across the U.S. this week. There had been six, but earlier Thursday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the killing of Robert Roberson: a man convicted of shaking his 2-year-old daughter to death in 2003.
Roberson maintains his innocence. The case will head back to trial court.
Bonowitz will next head to Missouri, where Lance Shockley is scheduled to die on Tuesday.
He said he’s stood vigil outside more than 1,600 executions now. That now includes three in Indiana in the last ten months. It’s part of a recent spike in capital punishment. Despite that, he said, the death penalty could be breathing its “last gasp.”
“Because where are these executions? They’re taking place in states that run by MAGA Republicans who are just trying to follow Donald Trump’s desire for more executions,” he said. “Yes, they’re implementing the law. But they don’t have to.”
He said the millions spent on carrying out the death penalty would be better used to provide more services to victims’ families. As far as Ward, he said Payne’s killer “has significant mental difficulties.”
“It doesn’t excuse what he did. The crime was horrific, and we have to recognize that. But we can be safe from people like Roy Ward who have done terrible crimes and who are still potentially dangerous and hold them accountable without executions,” he said. “And we know that, because that’s what we do in the vast majority of cases.”
Payne’s family has advocated for Ward’s sentence to be carried out. And Bonowitz said “if this happened to my loved one – if I came across that happening – I would do whatever it took, including killing that person who was doing it. I might even do it as a matter of vengeance if the person was subdued but I could get to them.”
But he doesn’t believe states should be bestowed that power, simply because there’s little to no consistency in which cases end in the death penalty and which don’t.
“Was this crime horrific? Yes. Does this person deserve to be held accountable? Absolutely. Can that be accomplished on an even playing field with all other murders? Yes. And that would be death by incarceration,” he said.
“And by the way, death by incarceration is much worse than death by execution. This is a release for Roy Ward. If he had to die in prison of old age, that’s some serious suffering.”
‘I took the life of their daughter’
According to IDOC, Ward’s last meal came from Texas Corral. It included a hamburger, steak melt, fries, a baked potato with butter, 12 fried shrimp, one sweet potato, an order of chicken alfredo, and some breadsticks.
Ward was killed with a heavy dose of pentobarbital: the same method used on Corcoran and Ritchie. They became the first inmates executed in the state since Matthew Eric Wrinkles in 2009. Through a public records request, the Indiana Capital Chronicle learned the state paid $900,000 for the drug supply.
Gov. Mike Braun has since said he’s open to reconsidering how Indiana carries out the death penalty.
Under state law, the names of family members who attend executions are kept confidential, so it wasn’t clear who from Payne’s family was present. But she left behind countless loved ones who never got to see her grow up.
In 2002, after Ward was first sentenced to the death penalty, he wrote a statement to present to the court.
“I took the life of their daughter, a person I never knew, but who I’ve come to learn was a good person,” he stated. “I never did much with my life. But she was going to do a lot with hers.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Indiana executes man who murdered Spencer County teen in 2001
Reporting by Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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