Stacy Payne
Abe Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, brings a large bell to executions around the country. It’s meant as a solemn protest for the people killed via capital punishment, Bonowitz said.
The Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

MICHIGAN CITY, Indiana − Roy Lee Ward, the man who raped and murdered 15-year-old Stacy Payne inside her Spencer County home in 2001, was executed just after midnight Friday, Oct. 10.

Ward, 53, died at 12:33 a.m., a little more than half an hour after the lethal injection process began inside Indiana State Prison, the Department of Correction announced.

Ward was found guilty in 2002 of murdering Payne, a beloved Heritage Hills High School cheerleader and honor roll student, inside her home at Dale. That conviction was overturned in 2004 after the Indiana Supreme Court granted Ward a new trial, saying the original proceedings should have been moved out of Spencer County due to community outrage.

A second trial got underway in 2007. The result was the same.

According to police, Ward showed up at Payne's door on July 11, 2001 while she was home with her younger sister. He claimed he was looking for a missing dog. He then forced himself inside, cut the phone lines, and attacked Payne with a knife and dumbbell.

Her sister had been napping when Ward arrived. Hiding upstairs, she called 911, and then-Dale town marshal Matt Keller arrived so quickly that Ward was still holding the knife when he ran inside.

Payne was airlifted to University of Louisville Hospital, but succumbed to her injuries.

In addition to cheerleading and playing in the marching band, Payne also taught crafts at her Bible school and worked a summer job at Jenk's Pizza. The July of her death, she was a month away from starting her sophomore year.

“She was the most caring, confident, happy, loving child anyone could have asked for,” Stacy’s mother, Julie Wininger, said during Ward’s first trial in 2002. “She was determined to always do her personal best. She had so much potential and was eager to excel.”

Late last month, Wininger asked the Indiana Parole Board to deny Ward clemency. They did.

“There is a quote that says time heals all wounds,” she said at the time. “But that absolutely is not true in this case, where a child is brutally murdered and dies a horrific death because of evil. You carry the pain every single day.”

A small crowd protested outside the prison

Media wasn't allowed to witness the execution. Per Indiana law, only select members of the victim’s family and an even smaller group for the convicted are permitted in witness areas.

Ward became the third Indiana convicted murderer to be put to death in Michigan City in the last 10 months. Like the executions of Joseph Corcoran on Dec. 18 and Benjamin Ritchie on May 20, the lead up to Ward's death drew a crowd.

Around 8 p.m., about 35 people joined a prayer vigil set up by the Catholic Diocese of Gary in a parking lot across from the prison gate.

Standing around a small collection of candles balanced on a red milk crate, the group recited prayers and expressed their belief that Indiana should abolish the death penalty.

The Rev. Rick Holy, of Lowell, Indiana, spearheads the diocese’s efforts against capital punishment. He said even though Roy Lee Ward was “guilty of some of the most horrendous crimes a person could commit,” his life still has value.

“This doesn’t accomplish what people might hope it accomplishes. It’s not really justice. It’s justice in the old sense of an eye for an eye. But it’s not something that’s going to bring a person who was raped and murdered back,” he said. “Will it bring some comfort to (Stacy Payne’s) family? I don’t know. That would be for them to say. We pray for them today. We pray for all victims of terrible violence.”

More executions to come

Abe Bonowitz, the executive director and co-founder of Death Penalty Action, which works to stop executions, said Ward’s execution is the first of five scheduled across the United States this week. There had been six, but earlier Oct. 9, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the killing of Robert Roberson: a man convicted of shaking his 2-year-old daughter to death in 2003.

Roberson maintains his innocence. The case will head back to trial court.

Bonowitz will next head to Missouri, where Lance Shockley is scheduled to die on Tuesday.

He said the millions spent on carrying out the death penalty would be better used to provide more services to victims’ families. As far as Ward, he said Payne’s killer “has significant mental difficulties.”

“Was this crime horrific? Yes. Does this person deserve to be held accountable? Absolutely. Can that be accomplished on an even playing field with all other murders? Yes. And that would be death by incarceration,” Bonowitz said.

“And by the way, death by incarceration is much worse than death by execution. This is a release for Roy Ward. If he had to die in prison of old age, that’s some serious suffering.”

The end of two lives

According to Indiana corrections officials, Ward's last meal came from Texas Corral. It included a hamburger, steak melt, fries, a baked potato with butter, 12 fried shrimp, one sweet potato, an order of chicken alfredo, and some breadsticks.

Ward was killed with a heavy dose of pentobarbital: the same method used on Corcoran and Ritchie. They became the first inmates executed in the state since Matthew Eric Wrinkles in 2009. Through a public records request, the Indiana Capital Chronicle learned the state paid $900,000 for the drug supply.

Gov. Mike Braun has since said he's open to reconsidering how Indiana carries out the death penalty.

In 2002, after he was first sentenced to die, Ward wrote a statement to present to the court.

"I took the life of their daughter, a person I never knew, but who I’ve come to learn was a good person," he stated. "I never did much with my life. But she was going to do a lot with hers.”

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Indiana uses lethal injection to execute man who murdered teen in 2001

Reporting by Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press

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