Overview

• Ward, 53, was executed by injection before sunrise at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, marking the state’s third execution since resuming capital punishment in 2024.
• He was condemned for the 2001 rape and murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne in Dale, a case that wound through appeals and a retrial before his guilty plea in 2007.
• Ward withdrew his final federal lawsuits last week after an agreement on compliance with the execution protocol, removing the last procedural obstacles.
• The Department of Correction told courts the pentobarbital is manufacturer-made with certificates of analysis, staff retrieval, locked-safe storage and temperature logs, though earlier records showed deviations.
• Indiana limits attendance and bars routine media witnesses at executions, and officials disclosed about $1.175 million spent on lethal-injection doses with per-dose costs estimated near $275,000 to $300,000.