Overview
- The state set the execution for Friday, Oct. 10, before sunrise at the Indiana State Prison.
- The Indiana Parole Board voted unanimously after Sept. 22 hearings to recommend denial, citing the attack’s brutality, the victim’s conscious suffering, and Ward’s criminal record and prison conduct.
- Ward declined a clemency interview over language concerns, while his attorneys argue he was misdiagnosed and are pursuing appeals targeting the lethal-injection method.
- Ward was convicted for the 2001 rape and murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne in Dale, with officers arresting him at the scene after a ruse to gain entry.
- This execution would be Indiana’s third in roughly 15 years, with the most recent carried out in May.