INDIANAPOLIS — Governor Mike Braun announced Monday that he has accepted the Indiana Parole Board’s unanimous recommendation to deny clemency for death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit.
The decision clears the final executive hurdle ahead of Weisheit’s scheduled execution, which is set to be carried out by lethal injection before sunrise on November 5, 2026, at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.
“I am accepting the Parole Board’s unanimous recommendation to deny clemency for Jeffrey Weisheit,” Governor 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.”
Weisheit, now 50, was sentenced to death in 2013 for the April 2010 murders of 8-year-old Alyssa Lynch and her 5-year-old brother, Caleb Lynch, in Evansville.
According to court records, Weisheit was watching the two children overnight on April 9, 2010, while their mother was working. Emergency responders arrived at the family’s home early the following morning to find it engulfed in flames. Investigators discovered Alyssa had died from smoke and soot inhalation in a closet, while Caleb was found bound with duct tape on a mattress with railroad flares placed near his body. Weisheit fled the state and was apprehended following a high-speed chase in Kentucky.
During his October 16 clemency hearing, Weisheit addressed the board, stating, “There is no excuse or explanation for what I did,” while asking to life imprisonment instead. However, the Indiana Parole Board unanimously voted on October 28 to recommend against clemency, noting that arguments regarding his background and mental health did not sufficiently distinguish his case from other capital offenders.
Weisheit’s death sentence was unanimously upheld by the Indiana Supreme Court on direct appeal in 2015, followed by years of unsuccessful state and federal post-conviction challenges. After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his final petition for a writ of certiorari in June 2026, the Indiana Supreme Court formally issued a death warrant setting the November 5 execution date.
Weisheit’s execution will mark the state’s fourth since Indiana resumed carrying out capital punishment.
