INDIANAPOLIS — Dee Dee Horen has waited almost 24 years for justice for her first husband, Beech Grove Police Ofc. Bill Toney, who was killed in the line of duty.
Horen received a phone call from the Indiana Attorney General's Office on Wednesday, June 26. They told her that the Indiana Department of Correction is ready to resume executions. She was also told that the man who killed her first husband is second in line for the long-awaited death penalty.
"I don't feel joy,” Horen said. “I don't feel happiness. I feel like that justice just needs to be served, and this is the justice that should be given to Bill."
Benjamin Ritchie shot and killed Toney on Sept. 29, 2000. A pursuit of a suspect in a stolen van turned into a foot chase. Ritchie shot Toney five times, killing the 31-year-old husband and father of two daughters. Ritchie received the death penalty Oct. 15, 2002. All his state and federal appeals are long exhausted. Indiana has never scheduled an execution date.
"He was tried and convicted in a court of law in the state of Indiana, sentenced to death,” Horen said. “And yet here we are, all of these years later. So, I do think that it is something that needs to happen. I think if the state of Indiana doesn't go through with these executions, that it just devalues the lives of the people that have been killed, and I will especially speak for police officers."
Two other cases of police officers murdered are currently awaiting death penalty trials.
Eight men sit on Indiana's death row. But the state has not executed anyone since 2009.
Does Horen look forward to attending Ritchie's execution?
“I don't know,” Horen said. “I can't answer that yet. I've thought about it. Looking forward to is not the right word. Will I be there? I think yes. I don't need that to happen to be healed. I need it to happen for justice, and for a message, and for Bill. I don't need it for me. So maybe I'll be there. I'll entertain that when they actually say that it's going to happen on this day."
The Indiana attorney general has first asked the Indiana Supreme Court for an execution date for Joseph Corcoran. He killed four men in Fort Wayne in 1997.
Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Wednesday that the Indiana Department of Correction has acquired the drug pentobarbital to carry out executions. The DOC says it is prepared to carry out any execution order issued by the Indiana Supreme Court.