For the third time in less than a year, Indiana officials will execute a convicted murderer.
This time it will be Roy Lee Ward, the Spencer County man who killed 15-year-old Heritage Hills High School student Stacy Payne on July 11, 2001.
Ward brutally murdered Payne in her Dale, Indiana home after knocking on her door and pretending he was looking for a lost dog. His attorneys spent the next two decades angling for new trials and appeals until his execution was finally set for Oct. 10.
Here’s what to know.
When will Roy Lee Ward’s execution take place?
It’s set for the early-morning hours of Friday, Oct. 10. The executions of Joseph Corcoran on Dec. 18 and Benjamin Ritchie on May 20 took place just after midnight.
Where will Roy Lee Ward’s execution be?
Like all Indiana state executions, it will take place at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.
How will Roy Lee Ward die?
By the only sanctioned death penalty method in Indiana: lethal injection.
Like Corcoran and Ritchie, Ward will receive a fatal dose of pentobarbital, the single-ingredient method Indiana debuted with Corcoran 10 months ago. Corcoran was the first person executed in Indiana in 15 years after the 2009 killing of Evansville man Matthew Eric Wrinkles.
Who will witness Roy Lee Ward’s execution?
Indiana law specifically lays out who can be present, either via a viewing area or in the room of the execution itself.
Per Indiana code 35-38-6-6, the people there will include:
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Indiana State Prison’s warden
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Anyone deemed necessary to carry out or assist in the execution
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“No more than five” relatives or friends of Ward
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No more than eight relatives of Payne’s, including parents, grandparents and siblings
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Other family members of Payne’s who don’t fit the above definitions that can be accommodated
Joanna Green, one of the attorneys in Indiana’s Public Defenders Office who has been representing Ward in his latest string of appeals, said via email last week that she wasn’t sure who from Ward’s side would be on hand.
Will media be able to watch the lethal injection of Roy Lee Ward?
No. Indiana is one of just two death-penalty states that doesn’t allow reporters to observe executions. The Indiana General Assembly voted to change state law since Wrinkles’ execution in 2009, when media members were allowed to watch the lethal injection unfold.
A Courier & Press reporter will be present early Friday morning, but will be relegated to a parking lot across from the prison’s main entrance.
Stacy Payne
Who was Stacy Payne?
Payne was a cheerleader and honor roll student who played in the high school band and served on student council.
In her off hours she worked at Jenks Pizza in Dale and was a member of the youth group at St. Joseph Catholic Church. Family called her caring, confident and loving.
“She was determined to always do her personal best,” her mother, Julia, said during Ward’s first sentencing hearing in December 2002. “She had so much potential.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Roy Lee Ward is about to be executed. Here’s what to know
