By Ahmed Abdelsalam
Florida and Alabama plan to execute two men Thursday for killing older adults during home robberies, just hours after Indiana put a prisoner to death in the first of three lethal injections scheduled for the same day in the United States.
Indiana execution
Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. at the state prison in Michigan City, said Noelle Russell, a Department of Correction spokesperson. Weisheit’s final meal was barbecue ribs and he had no final words. He acknowledged killing his girlfriend's two children in a house fire in the Evansville area in 2010 but had hoped Gov. Mike Braun would grant clemency. Braun declined.
Florida execution
Florida’s planned execution would be the state’s 19th this year under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, matching a record set in 2025. Jesse Guardado, 64, confessed and 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 buy drugs. A federal appeals court in 2024 said Guardado had received a 'full and fair' hearing during the death penalty phase.
Alabama execution
In 1991, Michael Taylor, then 19, fatally beat two people, ages 83 and 79, with a metal bar during a robbery in their Gadsden home. Police arrested him with the victims’ Cadillac an hour away in Birmingham. Death penalty opponents urged Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to reduce Taylor’s sentence to life in prison, noting his age and immaturity at the time. She declined. The state plans to execute Taylor, now 54, by lethal injection after a judge declared a nitrogen gas method unconstitutional. His attorneys objected to the last-minute switch since he had selected nitrogen gas years ago, but a judge ruled against him.
Florida has carried out more than half of the 32 executions in the U.S. so far this year. DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has said he wants to bring justice to families who have waited decades. The death penalty has faced renewed scrutiny since the September failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, although courts have rejected efforts to halt other executions.
