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Joseph Corcoran executed

The sun sets behind Indiana State Prison on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in Michigan City, Ind., where, barring last-minute court action or intervention by Gov. Eric Holcomb, Joseph Corcoran, 49, convicted in the 1997 killings of his brother and three other people, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection before sunrise Wednesday, Dec. 18. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
Erin Hooley/AP
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AP
The sun sets behind Indiana State Prison on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in Michigan City, Ind., where, barring last-minute court action or intervention by Gov. Eric Holcomb, Joseph Corcoran, 49, convicted in the 1997 killings of his brother and three other people, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection before sunrise Wednesday, Dec. 18. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

The State of Indiana executed convicted murderer Joseph Corcoran by lethal injection this morning just after midnight.

He was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m., according to the Indiana Department of Correction.

His last words were “Not really. Let’s get this over with.”

Corcoran was sentenced to death in 1999 for the 1997 murders of four people including his brother and his sister’s fiance inside a Fort Wayne home.

In June, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita requested an execution date be set for Corcoran, who had been on death row for decades while his case wound its way through state and federal courts on various appeals.

Most of those appeals centered on his mental state. He had been diagnosed with a number of different mental conditions over the years, including depression, schizoid personality disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

His attorneys argued the severity of his delusions rendered him incompetent and ineligible for the death penalty.

But the state argued that Corcoran’s mental status had been sufficiently litigated.

In recent months, Corcoran himself asked that his appeals be halted.

Rebecca manages the news at WBOI. She joined the staff in December 2017, and brought with her nearly two decades of experience in print journalism, including 15 years as an award-winning reporter for the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne.