Prayers, protests planned as Wallace execution nears

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. -- A man who spent nearly a quarter century on Indiana's death row was scheduled to be executed early Thursday for murdering an Evansville family of four in 1980.\nDonald Ray Wallace, 47, had declined to seek clemency from Gov. Mitch Daniels after exhausting his appeals. He was scheduled to die by chemical injection shortly after 12:01 a.m. CST at the Indiana State Prison.\nWallace was convicted in 1982 of killing Theresa Gilligan, her husband, Patrick, and their children, Lisa, 5, and Gregory, 4, during a robbery at their home.\nDiana Harrington of Louisville, Ky., the sister of Theresa Gilligan, said it was time for Wallace to receive his court-ordered punishment.\n"Sometimes there are crimes out there that are so horrible that it demands the punishment that the court applied," she said. "If people have a problem with that, they should write their legislators."\nDuring a 40-minute prayer service Wednesday evening in Evansville at the same church where the Gilligans were married, the priest who notified the Harringtons of the killings recited the rosary. Harrington had insisted the service be about her sister's family and all victims of violent crime, not about Wallace.\nHowever, one of Gilligan's sisters, Susan Strom, seemed to break that pact by saying, "Let us not forget to pray for Donald Wallace, whose life has become entwined with ours."\nDiana Harrington told about 200 or so who attended that Theresa and Pat Gilligan would have appreciated the turnout and that their "children with their wonderful manners and beautiful smiles would have welcomed you all."\nSeveral in the crowd dabbed their eyes as tears ran down their faces.\nDeath penalty opponents planned a separate prayer vigil and protest in the prison parking lot beginning at 8 p.m. CST.\n"We're just ever hopeful that the citizens of Indiana will at least ask the governor to study the question," said Marti Pizzini, secretary of the Duneland Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.\nWallace's death would end a long-running appeals process that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which late last year declined to hear the case.\nWallace had not changed his mind about seeking clemency Wednesday, attorney Sarah Nagy said.\nBy state law, the governor can grant clemency to any prisoner, with or without a formal request.\nJane Jankowski, a spokeswoman for Daniels, said Wednesday the governor had met with his general counsel and was reading Wallace's file "just to make sure he's taken a final look." Barring a new discovery, she said, Daniels was unlikely to intervene.\nWallace wrote last year that he was "very peaceful with dying."\n"I'm relieved that it's almost over," he wrote to the Evansville Courier & Press Oct. 9, 2004. "I am so tired of doing time."\nWallace would become the 12th person executed by the state of Indiana since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. The last person executed was Joseph Trueblood June 13, 2003, for the 1988 murders of Susan Bowsher of Lafayette and her children, 2-year-old Ashelyn Hughes and 1-year-old William E. Bowsher.\nThen-Gov. Joe Kernan granted clemency last July to Darnell Williams, the first time in 48 years that an Indiana governor granted clemency in a capital case. Kernan said it would be unfair to execute Williams when a mentally retarded accomplice got a life sentence.\nKernan also granted clemency in January to Michael Daniels, an Indianapolis man convicted of murdering an Army minister in 1978.\nA second execution is already scheduled for this year. Bill J. Benefiel, 48, is scheduled to be executed April 21 for the 1987 torture-slaying of Dolores Wells, 18, of Terre Haute.