As reported in this USA Today article, “Indiana has executed its first inmate in 15 years, as Joseph Edward Corcoran was declared dead before sunrise on Wednesday morning.” Here is more:
Corcoran, 49, was convicted in 1999 for the 1997 quadruple murder of his older brother, sister’s fiancé and their two friends. He committed the homicides with a semi-automatic rifle, and at the home he lived in with his older sister and brother in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Corcoran, who was 22 at the time, killed his brother, 30-year-old James Corcoran; his sister’s fiancé, 32-year-old Robert Scott Turner; and their two friends, 30-year-old Timothy Bricker and 30-year-old Douglas Stillwell.
Before Corcoran’s execution, his attorneys filed a request at the Indiana Supreme Court asking them to consider his client’s competency due to his paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis in 1999. The court denied the attorneys’ request on Dec. 5….
Corcoran died at 12:44 a.m. CST after being given a lethal dose of pentobarbital…. After the execution, Gov, Eric Holcomb said, “Joseph Corcoran’s case has been reviewed repeatedly over the last 25 years — including 7 times by the Indiana Supreme Court and 3 times by the U.S. Supreme Court, the most recent of which was tonight. His sentence has never been overturned and was carried out as ordered by the court.”