Executed for Killing 15 Year Old Girl – Roy Lee Ward | Final Meal & Last Words.
On October 10th, 2025, after more than 23 years on death row, justice was finally carried out. Roy Lee Ward was executed by lethal injection at the Indiana State Prison. In this video, we’ll reveal what happened that day, what his last meal was, and what his final words were. In the quiet town of Dale, Indiana, everything changed on July 11th, 2001.
That afternoon, 29-year-old Roy Lee Ward arrived at the Payne family home, claiming he was looking for a lost dog. Stacy Payne, a 15-year-old honors student and cheerleader at Heritage Hills High School, opened the door. What happened next would forever shake a rural community of just 1,500 residents.
Stacy Payne was an exemplary student who was about to start her sophomore year at Heritage Hills High School. She was a member of the student council, made the honor role, and was actively involved in several extracurricular activities. She played the flute in the school band, and was a cheerleader for the football team. During the summer, she also taught arts and crafts at her church’s Sunday school.
Despite her young age, she was very hardworking. She had recently gotten a job at Jensen Pizza after writing an impressive letter to the owners at the start of the summer, which earned her the position immediately. But this invaluable young woman would soon come face to face with a monster in human form. Around 12:30 p.m.
on July 11th, 2001, Roy Ward arrived at the Payne family’s residence. According to police reports, he pretended to be searching for a lost dog in order to gain the trust of 15-year-old Stacy Payne and convince her to let him into the house while her younger sister Melissa, aged 14, was sleeping upstairs. Although Stacy was wary and spoke with him briefly, Ward eventually forced his way inside, cut the phone lines, and attacked her brutally.
Ward tied Stacy up and assaulted her with a knife and a 5- lb dumbbell, inflicting 18 blunt force wounds. During the sexual assault, he slashed her throat down to the trachea, larynx, and vocal cords, leaving her barely able to breathe and unable to speak. But the horrors didn’t end there. Ward made a 24.5 in circumferential wound around her abdomen that practically cut except for her spinal cord.
Melissa woke up to the desperate screams of her sister. From the top of the stairs, she saw a ward on top of Stacy as Stacy screamed and begged him to stop. Melissa ran to her parents’ bedroom, called 911, and hid in a closet while listening to her sister plead, “Please stop.” During the 911 call, dispatchers could hear a young girl screaming in the background.
Matt Keller, the sheriff of the town of Dale, was at Heritage Hills High School discussing security measures for the upcoming fall festival when he was dispatched to the Payne residence. Initially, the call was described as a man who shouldn’t be in the house is inside the house. But halfway there, Keller had a gut feeling that this wasn’t going to be an ordinary call.
When Keller arrived at the scene and opened the door, he made direct eye contact with Roy Lee Ward, who was standing in the doorway covered in blood and holding a knife. Keller drew his gun and ordered him multiple times to get on the ground. I ordered him to get down. The second time he said, “I didn’t do anything.
” And after the third command, he finally went down right there in the doorway. Keller later recalled after handcuffing Ward, Keller discovered Stacy lying on the kitchen floor, naked from the waist down, conscious but unable to speak due to the deep wounds to her throat. Her body was motionless, barely clinging to life, but she could still nod in response to questions.
When the sheriff tried to ask what had happened, she could only move her head. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital, but the extent of her injuries was almost beyond comprehension. She had suffered brutal wounds and showed clear signs of sexual assault. Later, testing confirmed it. Stacy’s DNA was found on Royy’s.
The local hospital wasn’t equipped to handle such severe injuries, so she was airlifted to the University of Louisville Hospital, fighting to stay alive. She arrived still breathing, but not for long. Only 5 hours after Ward broke into her home, Stacy passed away. One of the most heartbreaking details of the case is that she remained conscious and aware throughout the attack and during her final hours, enduring the unimaginable pain inflicted by Roy Lee Ward.
Roy Lee Ward had a lengthy criminal record that began in his youth and spanned three states: Indiana, Kentucky, and Missouri. As a juvenile, he was arrested for public indecency and harassment. His adult criminal record began in 1990 and included multiple convictions for assault, theft, burglary, forgery, drug offenses, and numerous crimes related to indecent exposure and lewd conduct.
During the first trial in 2002, a clinical psychologist testified that Ward had been exposing himself in public since around the age of 10. Court records revealed that between 1992 and 2001, Ward had accumulated multiple charges for indecent exposure, lewd conduct, and theft, among others. Even his defense attorney acknowledged that authorities had suspected him in additional indecency reports in Perry County, Indiana, and Hancock County, Kentucky.
Ward had been sentenced to the Department of Corrections multiple times and had been given several opportunities for community supervision, failing many of them. At the time of the 2001 crime, he was on probation for a burglary in Missouri. In February 2002, Ward filed a motion to change venue, arguing that public outrage, hostility, and prejuditial pre-trial publicity made it impossible to receive a fair trial.
Evidence presented at the hearing included several local and regional newspaper articles, as well as TV news stories that were graphic and detailed, but generally accurate. Many of those reports also mentioned Ward’s prior criminal history, which would not have been admissible in court. However, the jury ultimately dismissed this concern.
In December 2002, Ward was found guilty of murder, rape, and criminal deviate conduct and he was sentenced to death. However, the Indiana Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2004 and ordered a new trial, citing prejuditial pre-trial publicity and the trial court’s denial of the motion for a venue change.
In the second trial in 2007 held in Vanderberg County after both parties agreed to select the jury from Klay County, Ward pleaded guilty to the charges of rape and murder. The jury once again sentenced him to death and the court upheld that sentence. For more than two decades, Ward’s case wound its way through the courts. The US Supreme Court declined to review it in 2017.
In 2019, Ward filed a lawsuit against the state of Indiana, seeking to halt all pending executions. Ward’s institutional behavior reflected many of the same problems he had while free. He received 14 conduct reports during his incarceration, including sexual misconduct, possession of a controlled substance, and assault on another inmate.
Ward chose not to testify during his clemency hearing. In a sworn statement dated September 17th, he cited a learning disability and speech impairment that made it difficult for him to express himself clearly. He said he declined an interview with the parole board because due to my learning disability and speech impediment, the messages I intend to convey are sometimes difficult to express accurately.
In September 2025, the Indiana Parole Board unanimously recommended that Governor Mike Braw deny Ward’s clemency request. Governor Braw followed that recommendation and rejected the petition. In October 2025, Ward withdrew his final federal appeals, clearing the way for his execution. The day of execution finally arrived.
On October 10th, 2025, at 12:33 a.m., Roy Lee Ward was executed by lethal injection at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. He was 53 years old. The process began shortly after midnight, and Ward was pronounced dead 33 minutes later. 10 hours earlier, he had been offered his last meal. Roy Ward chose Texas Corral as his final meal selection, ordering a hamburger, a steak melt sandwich, French fries, a baked potato with butter, 12 fried shrimp, a sweet potato, chicken alfredo, and bread sticks. Bound to the gurnie and moments
away from execution, Ward was asked if he had any final words. He replied, “Brian will read them.” Referring to his spiritual adviser, Deacon Brian Nosbush. The spiritual adviser opened the letter and read, “Stacy Payne was full of life and had a bright future. I took that from her and her family.
I wish I could go back and change things, but I cannot. I hate myself for what I did. If I could take away all the pain I caused Stacy and her family, I would. There is no excuse. I also hurt my own family. I wish I could take that away. I have asked God for forgiveness, though I feel I do not deserve it and cannot forgive myself.
I hope my execution brings some peace to Stacy’s family. During my incarceration, I have tried to become a better person and I hope I have not failed. I have accepted God and believe his words are guidance for my life. I hope God accompanies me on this next journey. I want to thank people again for being respectful to my parents while they were alive and for not holding a grudge for what I did.
I love my family and friends and want to thank them for helping and supporting me. After the letter was read, the execution proceeded. Ward was administered a lethal dose of Pentoarbital following Indiana’s single drug protocol. He became the third person executed in Indiana since the state resumed executions in 2024 after a 15-year hiatus.
No signs of suffering were reported during the procedure, which lasted approximately 33 minutes from the start of the process until the official time of death. More than two decades after Stacy Payne’s murder, her family remains marked by grief. Her mother, Julie Winninger, counts every day since the tragedy and has petitioned for justice before the parole board, mourning the life her daughter never had.
Stacy’s father still lives in the home where the crime occurred, surrounded by memories, though he chose not to attend Ward’s execution. For investigators like Matt Keller, the execution represents the closure of a long and painful process. And that wraps up today’s video. What do you think about this case? Was justice served or not? Subscribe to the channel because in just 4 days, the United States will carry out two more executions.
One in Missouri and another in Florida.
