INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Wednesday that he and Attorney General Todd Rokita want to resume executions in state prisons — starting with a convicted murderer.
“After years of effort, the Indiana Department of Correction has acquired a drug — pentobarbital — which can be used to carry out executions," Holcomb said. "Accordingly, I am fulfilling my duties as governor to follow the law and move forward appropriately in this matter."
The attorney general's office said they want to start with Joseph Corcoran.
Corcoran was found guilty of the 1997 murders of four people in Fort Wayne: his brother, his sister's fiancé and two of their friends. In 2016, officials said he exhausted his appeals and has been awaiting execution.
“In Indiana, state law authorizes the death penalty as a means of providing justice for victims of society’s most heinous crimes and holding perpetrators accountable,” Rokita said. “Further, it serves as an effective deterrent for certain potential offenders who might otherwise commit similar extreme crimes of violence. Now that the Indiana Department of Correction is prepared to carry out the lawfully imposed sentence, it’s incumbent on our justice system to immediately enable executions in our prisons to resume. Today, I am filing a motion asking the Indiana Supreme Court to set a date for the execution of Joseph Corcoran.”
Here's the full motion filed by Rokita:
Can't see this embed? Click here.
Indiana currently has eight men on death row, without an execution date set for any of them.
Three of the inmates awaiting execution committed their crimes in central Indiana:
- Eric D. Holmes was convicted of murdering two people and trying to kill a third at the Shoney's restaurant in Castleton on Nov. 15, 1989. He was sentenced in March 1993.
- Michael Dean Overstreet was convicted for the murder, rape and criminal confinement of 18-year-old Kelly Eckart of Franklin. He was sentenced in July 2000.
- Benjamin Ritchie shot and killed Beech Grove Police Ofc. William Toney during a chase after stealing a car on Sept. 29, 2000. He was sentenced two years later.
"I would love to stop talking about it," Dee Dee Horen, who was married to Toney, told 13News in an interview last year. "I would love to just say that justice was served — the sentence was carried out. I just don't really understand why we have a sentence that's not carried out."
Horen told 13News she has been told Ritchie will be the second execution scheduled in Indiana once the state resumes the death penalty.
